


Year One

by SolitaryEngel



Series: Trust in Me [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, M/M, Mild Gore, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2019-10-19 07:24:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 22,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17596925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolitaryEngel/pseuds/SolitaryEngel
Summary: Harry begins his first year with his house's earnest support. He will miss the loving spectre, but it's time to join the world that had been waiting for him since he was a baby. Only... is the house really so far away?A writing exercise: "Harry Potter except Snape is his soulmate. (Sharing-emotions-type)" Because it was my goal to change *only* what felt natural within this construct, the characters are going to quote themselves heavily. A very fun, difficult, challenging exercise.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strange mail is delivered to Number Four, Privet Drive

# Chapter One

* * *

* * *

    “Up! Get up! Now!”

    No matter how many years it had been, that horrible voice still managed to shock him right up out of sleep. He'd been having such an interesting dream too… a flying motorcycle. A little bit cooler than the floating broom toy he'd played with in his house when he was younger, but he wouldn't dare tell the _house_ that. It was sensitive and got hurt easily.

    “Are you up yet?” His aunt's knuckles on the cracked cupboard door could wake the dead, that was for sure. He didn't know why she thought he could possibly have slept through all the racket.

    “Nearly,” he croaked. It had been half a minute, he was still rubbing the sleep it from his eyes, for goodness's sake. Moments like this, he missed the gentle house the most.

    “Well, get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon. And don't you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Duddy's birthday.”

    After the requisite groan and waspish retort from his Aunt, he greeted the spiders and got on with it. He just knew it would be an absolutely abysmal day.

 

* * *

 

     Harry's understanding of emotions was much better at ten than it had been at four. When, two weeks after Dudley's birthday the familiar 'other' emotions found him, he knew exactly how to name them.

    Fury. Fear. Concern. Loneliness. Sorrow.

    “You're here?” he asked the air, breathlessly. He couldn't risk making too much noise, the Dursleys were watching TV in just the next room. Assent. Deeper concern, and an attached query. Harry knew the house — the phantom, he guessed, if it could move like this — was asking him if he was okay.

    “Had a weird time at the zoo,” Harry whispered. “I wasn’t supposed to go, but no one could watch me. The snake was nice to me... but the glass disappeared and I’ve been in trouble ever since. I’ve missed you.”

    The emotions cycled through shades of confusion, but at the last sentence a return sentiment of longing and sorrow that matched Harry’s own filtered through. Then, a query… a questioning push.

    “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re asking,” Harry answered. Frustration flooded through, but it was mixed with concern and Harry knew the ghost, house, whatever his friend was just wanted to help. “I can’t sneak out of the cupboard until nighttime,” Harry said next. “Can I come to your house then? I am pretty hungry.”

    Rage, sorrow, desperation. The house wanted to fix this for him.

    “It’s okay, this is pretty normal,” Harry soothed. The anger took a definite mocking edge. “Well it is for me,” Harry whispered hotly, “and I think it’s quite alright because I’ve still got you to go back to at the end of it. Er — right?”

    A swell of reassurance, assent, love.

    “I love you too,” he told his house.

 

* * *

 

    “The gold plate feels especially fancy today,” he said to the house, later. Soon after the snack foods appeared when he was just four, glorious meals on golden plates with a golden goblet of a very odd but somehow addicting vegetable drink started showing up too… warm parts always warm, and cold parts always cold, no matter what time he showed up. “Before tonight… I didn’t dare leave the house — what if they caught me? — But I’ve been sneaking food from the kitchens at night to get by.”

    Such sorrow. His house didn’t want that for him. Harry was okay. He knew that it was due to his house that he’d grown up so strong. He was tan from working in the Dursley’s garden, but the strength in his body he knew came from the full meals he ate every day he could at this table and single chair. After his belly was full and he was sleepy, he gave his bear an extra strong hug, and whispered “Thank you,” to the seemingly empty house. The bear still hugged back, even six years later.

 

* * *

 

     The day a letter addressed to Harry came, a good month and a half after his sentence was done with, Harry stormed over to number thirteen, Privet Drive to complain about Uncle Vernon stealing it from him. The emotions weren’t there to greet him, and Harry ate the waiting food in angry silence, then hugged his bear so hard he half-feared he might finally break it.

    That night, his uncle told him the letter had been burnt, and moved him to Dudley’s second bedroom. Harry wished instead he could sleep on his house’s couch forever and be done with his relatives. Family was not supposed to behave like this. His house had taught him that.

    Three days and forty destroyed letters later, Harry was able to complain vehemently about the week’s drama to his house which listened with growing anger, before it seemed to forcibly calm itself, and therefore Harry, down. There was determination coming through clearly to Harry. The house was determined to fix _this_ problem.

    “But how?” Harry wondered. The house’s determination doubled.

    The next day, his uncle forced them all out of the house by threat of being beat around the head — as Dudley experienced for the first time in his life when he took too long to pack silly things that he didn't need. It was a miserable journey and Harry feared for his uncle’s sanity and for his house… how would he get back to his much-beloved house? Would they come back in time for his annual birthday celebration? Harry’s stomach gnawed with hunger by the end of the day, but he didn’t complain the way Dudley did. God, Dudley was such a whiny prat.

    When the owner brought up his letter, Harry wasn’t surprised when yet again he was foiled in retrieving it. Then they were off again.

    “Daddy’s gone mad, hasn’t he?” Dudley asked, aghast, and Harry wondered why it had taken him so long to realize it.

Then Dudley started talking about television he was missing which just underscored Harry’s sorrow. Hearing so much about what day it was reminded him again and again that  _tomorrow_ was his birthday. He would miss his celebration after all.

    Uncle Vernon took them to a scary-looking shack-house on an even scarier-looking rock sticking out of the ocean. They had to use a rowboat to get there, and the storm was picking up leaving everyone drenched and shivering. How he wished for the warmth and comfort of his ghost-house then.

    Harry still shivered on the cobble floor that night. Dudley was swaddled in several blankets, warm on the couch, but he only had one that was rather thin and riddled with holes. He wanted to sleep — what good was turning eleven if it would just be with this lot? — but even with the rough sleep he’d had all week he just couldn’t manage it on the hard ground.

    Dudley’s watch lit up at night. Harry could see the time if he wanted to and despite his earlier jadedness he still found himself checking the time every few minutes, counting down to midnight.

    At exactly the stroke of twelve, a large ‘BOOM’ rocked the shack near off its foundations.

 

* * *

 

    “A wizard!” Harry crowed, filled with ecstasy. “ _That’s_ what has been up the Dursley’s nose my whole life! Magic! You’re magic too, aren't you? That’s a toy potions set! That, over there! That’s a training broom!”

    The house felt cautious, but Harry went on.

    “My parents didn’t die in a _car crash_ , they were…” Sobering, Harry sat down at the table where his meal had waited for him, and picked up his fork to poke at his food. “Well, anyway there was a prat there who said that people raised by Muggles shouldn’t go to Hogwarts. You know Hogwarts, the school?”

    Heavy amusement and assent followed, and Harry colored, realizing he was talking about something very obvious to the house.

    “Well,” he said, determined to move past it, “I think that _can't_ be right. I'd like to go to the school, at least. All the crazy things I've seen! Real unicorn horns! Owls that deliver mail! I have a _wand_ now!” He fished it out of his back pocket — horror, chagrin — to wave in the air, unintentionally creating sparks again.

    “Eh? Why the bad feelings?” He asked the air. There was a tangled response — he felt like the main emotion there was exasperation. He went to put this wand away again and the feelings doubled. “Not in my pocket, then?”

    Relief, assent. “Well where an I supposed to hide it? I don't want the Dursleys to steal it, they'll break it for sure!” The response to that was decidedly grumpy. “You know I can’t walk around with it in my hand,” Harry said reasonably. “I’ll just set it on the table for now.”

    The house settled a bit after that, seeming content to have him go back to eating steadily.

    “I have an owl now,” Harry said proudly. “Hagrid the uh, Keeper of Keys and Grounds of Hogwarts took me to get one as a birthday present. I looked through my books and decided to name her Hedwig. I read my books a lot, especially the Potions one. I already know several of the recipes! They’re from the games we play! I also like the book about er… Defense Against the Dark Arts, or something like that? Though it seems more like a fighting book than real _defense_ , if you ask me. If I could, I’d fight against Dudley! But Hagrid said we cant use magic against non-magical people. I guess that makes sense.”

    Harry scooped up an extra large bite of mashed potatoes and shoved it in his mouth before continuing his impassioned rant. “Both Hagrid and that boy mentioned something about Houses? At school? But I didn’t understand it. Hagrid said… only bad wizards come from one of them, but I can’t remember the name of it.” A sharp sense of dissent and anger flooded Harry, and he gasped, and flinched. He was used to the violence those emotions promised, but not from his dear house. The emotions tinted with apology and a sense of pushing the anger down, but it was still there.

    “Is… is that a bad thing to say?” Harry offered softly. Assent. Protectiveness, but not for Harry, he could tell it was wide, directed elsewhere. _Fury._ And… pain. There was a bit of that emotional pain mixed in, but it was an old pain, well-remembered.

    “Sorry,” Harry said, putting his fork down. “I don’t know anything except what I’ve been told by Hagrid. Please don’t be mad at me.”

    Assurance. And a sort of… _dismissal_ Harry hadn’t ever felt from the house before.

    Harry didn’t like it at all.

 

* * *

 

    The next day in the middle of the floor of the entryway was a book, _Hogwarts: A History_ , with red markings that Harry rifled through the pages to find. He learned about Slytherin, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff, encouraged by the house who was awake despite it being a weekday. He learned about the Founders, the personality traits that defined them, and how children were sorted into Houses that were most similar to the four ancient people.

    “So really it’s just… how you think,” Harry said carefully. Assent. “It does make sense that ambition would lead to more um — infamous? I guess? — people. What if your ambition was to prove you weren’t nothing?” Harry asked, thinking of his relatives, then of the blond in Madam Malkin’s. “What if you wanted to prove to mean boys that Muggle-raised kids can be great wizards too?”

    A mix of feelings then, with some love sprinkled in, but Harry thought with an involuntary sinking feeling that it all meant that he might be more like a Slytherin after all. Protectiveness. His house was there for him, regardless.

    “I’m going to miss you,” he said to the house sadly. “But I want to learn. I want to be free.”

    Love, assurance, excitement, and hope. His house wanted him to go too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading :D
> 
> The next chapter things will start to be less skippy, time-wise.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry Potter arrives at Hogwarts.

# Chapter Two

* * *

* * *

_'Hogwarts: A History'_ had told him exactly how to get through the barrier at King’s Cross in order to find platform nine and three-quarters. His Uncle Vernon had been greedy and gleeful, thinking he was leaving Harry in the station to fend for himself with nowhere else to go, but Harry just walked through the brick wall (well, maybe he closed his eyes and more-so _flinched_ through it) without looking back.

The train bound for Hogwarts was shiny and beautiful. Dudley had been into trains for a very short time when they were really little, but Harry hadn’t seen one as big and perfect as this one. Hedwig and he meandered around the station, passing by _far_ too many cats and owls to the back of the train where some of the windows revealed empty compartments.

Harry didn’t know anyone, so he figured he better just sit alone for now. If only his trunk felt the same... instead insisting on being so heavy that he couldn't lift it onto the train bed. Still, with all his strength, he finally managed to get it up and shoved into to an empty compartment without jostling his owl too much. Then, he awkwardly sat, fiddling with his wand and kicking his legs a bit while families of all sorts said their goodbyes outside.

“Blimey, you’re small,” a voice said from the train-side of his compartment. He hadn’t even being paying attention to the hallway, watching the various children and their families outside, instead. An older boy stood there in the doorway, with a shiny “P” badge on his chest.

“I’m Robert Hilliard,” he said, then tapped the small shield on his chest. “I am a Prefect for Ravenclaw. If you need any help, look for someone with one of these on, okay? The others will start their rounds soon, too, I bet. See you around!”

Then Harry was alone again. He could hear some bickering of a family outside — something about another Prefect and toilet seats — when the whistle sounded and the lot of them ran for one of the doors that led into the train car proper. Soon enough, the door opened and a boy his age with copper-red hair stood there, huffing slightly with his trunk in hand.

He pointed at the bench seat across from Harry. “Anyone sitting there? Everywhere else is full.”

“No, it’s fine,” Harry said, adjusting his feet to make room.

It was quiet between them, until two identical faces showed up in the compartment door, both with the same red hair and freckles as his new travel companion

“Hey, Ron. Listen, we’re going down to the middle of the train — Lee Jordan’s got a giant tarantula down there.”

“Right,” Ron said in response. “Er — I’ll come with you then.”

He left the compartment with his brothers, studiously avoiding looking at Harry’s side of the compartment.

“Shouldn’t you stay?” Harry heard as the compartment door closed. “He’s all alone now.”

“It’s awkward, what do I say?” Ron complained as they walked away. Harry didn’t mind. He was used to being alone. Though, he admitted to himself, he did rather miss his house.

“Anything off the trolley, dear?” A woman with a rather nice smile asked an hour later. Harry hadn’t been able to visit his house that morning and therefore eat breakfast, so he jumped up right away, only to pull up short when he didn’t recognise _anything._ Wait — no, there were some Cauldron Cakes he recognised from his house’s pantry. He liked those. He bought some of everything, just excited to have the freedom to buy a sweet for himself, and gobbled down a Cauldron Cake first, imagining he was sharing the train experience with his ghost friend.

He was shocked nearly out of his skin when the Chocolate Frog card of Albus Dumbledore he got walked out of the frame — moving pictures, without a big bulky TV! Did wizards have movies on paper? The Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans were a thrill ride for sure, and the Pumpkin Pasties tasted just like the odd juice he had with his golden-plated meals, but sweeter. It had been _pumpkin_ juice all along!

“Sorry,” a rather chubby boy asked from the doorway some time later. He had tears in his eyes, alarming Harry. “But have you seen a toad at all?”

Harry shook his head, unsure how to react to the fragile looking boy.

In return, his fears were proven valid when the brown-haired boy actually _wailed._ “I’ve lost him! He keeps getting away from me!”

“He’ll turn up…” Harry said reluctantly. Do toads just ‘turn up’ after they’ve been misplaced?

“Yes… well, if you see him…” Then the compartment door shut behind him and Harry felt awful for not having been more helpful.

Not thirty seconds later the compartment door opened again. “Have you seen a toad?” a girl with distractingly unruly hair asked. She was already wearing her robes. Should he be in his robes already too? “Neville’s lost one.”

Harry stood. “I haven’t seen it, but I thought I might help look,” he said, feeling a bit shy. _This_ girl must not have hesitated like he had. “Maybe a spell?” he offered.

“Oh! Have you tried some? I tried some simple spells at home and they all worked for me, but if you know ones I don’t…”

Harry shrugged. He didn’t feel as confident as this girl seemed to be, but he had done the wand movements in his house and gotten some encouragement and vague ‘wrong or proud’ emotions based on what his watcher thought of his technique.

Feeling very _seen_ , Harry lifted his wand a bit. “Er, I’m trying to find Neville’s toad,” he stuttered. “ _Point Me._ ”

His hand spun on his palm, and he startled a bit. His first purposeful magic! It pointed left, down the rear of the train, and he looked at the girl with excitement.

“Let’s go!” she said, beaming. “I’m Hermione Granger, by the way. Nobody in my family is magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it’s the very best school of witchcraft there is, I’ve heard — I’ve learnt all our set books off by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough — who are you, by the way?”

Hermione was a _very_ fast talker. Harry almost ran into the hallway wall trying to keep up with it all.

“I’m Harry Potter,” he said, still following his wand and amazed it didn’t roll off his palm, staying perfectly on his hand.

“Are you really? I I know all about you of course — I got a few extra books for background reading, and you're in _Modern Magical History_ and the _Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_ and _Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century_.”

“Am I? Oh, hullo, Neville. I'm Harry.”

“Harry _Potter,_ ” Hermione corrected intensely, “and really, Harry, didn't you know? I would have read up on everything I could if it was me.”

“I was raised by Muggles, mostly. And a… mute ghost or something. I never knew.”

“Really?” Neville asked, looking interested for the first time since Harry had met him. The wand on his hand dipped a bit, he thought they were getting close to the last train car and the wand seemed to think Trevor was close as well. “A _mute_ ghost? What did he — or she — look like?”

“I never saw them,” said Harry surprised.

“But magical folk can see ghosts,” Neville said reasonably. “Maybe it was a poltergeist? They're sneaky like that.”

“I've read about those,” Hermione jumped in. Apparently there's been one at Hogwarts since its founding in 990 A.D. His name is —”

“Trevor!” Neville called out happily. There he was, a squat brown toad, sitting grumpily by the door at the end of the train.

“He traveled quite a ways,” commented Hermione. “How odd. Anyway, we better get back, and _you_ better get into your robes. I expect we'll be there soon.”

“Yeah?” Harry said, scratching his nose. “Must be off, I guess, then.”

“Do you know what House you'll be in?” Hermione asked, following close behind him. Neville came along as well, crooning to his amphibians lovingly. “I've asked around a bit and I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best, I hear Dumbledore himself was one, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad.”

“Gryffindor, hopefully,” said Neville's small voice behind them. “My whole of my family were Gryffindor, straight up the line.”

“Slytherin, I expect,” said Harry nervously. “I don't want anyone to tell me I can't be as good as them.”

“Hmm. I expect you can prove _that_ from any House,” said Hermione, but her voice was gentler, less swotty than before. “Here's your compartment. The first trip to the castle will be by boat. Should we go in one together?”

“Sure,” Harry said, feeling his face heat a bit. “I don't know anyone else.”

Harry changed into his robes in his empty compartment, and Hermione and Neville went back to wherever they had been staying before. This time, being alone wasn't quite as nice. He thought the girl was very strange and the boy rather wimpy, but they were nice and he was looking forward to getting off the train to be around them again.

The compartment door slammed open.

“Is it true?” The mean boy from Diagon Alley stood framed in his compartment door. Harry steeled himself for the interaction. “They're saying a few compartments down that Harry Potter is in this compartment. So it's you, isn't it?”

He was shadowed by two rather beefy boys who appeared very intimidating indeed.

“Yes…” he replied, not liking the implication of the two bodyguards behind him.

“Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle,” the pale boy said. His voice was annoying, like he was bored all the time. It set Harry's teeth on edge, but he willed himself to look past it. He didn't have many options for friends right now, did he? “And my name's Draco. Draco Malfoy.”

“Nice to meet you,” he said automatically.

“The girl who was talking about you is a _Muggleborn_ ,” the boy said then, with an edge of horror in his voice. “I can see now — well, you're all alone, aren't you? But you don't have to stoop _that_ low with making friends. I can help you there.”

He held his hand out like some sort of initiation handshake, and Harry eyed it with fascination.

“She is super smart, and was nicely helping Neville look for his pet,” Harry argued. “I'll only take that hand if it doesn't come with the ridiculous condition of choosing my friends _for_ me.”

Draco gaped, and his hand wavered. Harry wondered if someone had ever stood up to Dudley if he would have made a face like that.

Finally, the boy sniffed. “Fine,” he said, nose up in the air. “There's no accounting for _taste_ , it seems.”

Harry rolled his eyes and shook the boys hand. He hoped he wouldn't regret it, but honestly he didn't have any reason to make an enemy before he'd even arrived at school. 

Hermione and Neville were waiting for him at the shore when they arrived. Hagrid called out to him merrily and Draco, who had stayed with him prattling on about his father and about the Slytherin house, huffed out a disgusted breath and stalked off with his two lumbering friends.

“Still got your toad?” Harry asked Neville, who showed him the strong two-handed grip he was using to keep his wayward pet in line.

“Do you feel something odd?” Hermione asked, a new note of confusion coloring her voice. “A weird kind of feeling of excitement and… a bit of dread?”

“I think we're all feeling that way,” Neville replied consolingly.

“No…” Hermione whispered. “I think… well it must be, but I would need to check my books again… such an odd phenomenon… but so _young…”_

Harry left her to her ramblings. The vision of the large, imposing castle before them had quite taken his breath away, even if he had known what she was muttering about. Flickering orange lights lit up the windows and towers and Harry thought they must all be from _fires_ instead of electricity. Of course his books said that electric items don’t work well at Hogwarts — or around magic at all apparently, but it was still a surprise — oh, now he was thinking like the girl too.

“FORWARD!” shouted Hagrid suddenly, and Neville jumped so high he nearly upended their boat as they suddenly lurched forward, across the great, dark lake.

“Now I’m certain of it,” Hermione whispered to herself still. “That definitely didn’t come from me —”

“Oh, you’ve felt your soulmate then?” Neville asked, recovered from his fright.

“Soulmate?” asked Harry as Hermione responded “Well I think it _must_ be…”

“Who?” asked Neville eagerly.

“ _What?_ ” asked Harry, frustrated.

“I don’t know,” Hermione responded nervously. “Suppose I felt it on the train… but what is the effect of meeting your soulmate so early? I never imagined meeting mine so early into my schooling...”

“What are you talking about? Soulmates?” Harry gritted out.

“Did you know?” Neville asked. Hermione seemed distracted enough for once not to be the one imparting information. “You can feel your soulmates emotions when you get near them. It’s a magic thing… supposedly to help reproduction, but I dunno anything about that…”

Neville’s face was bright red, and he busied himself looking after Trevor.

“So… my ghost... pol-ter-geist... is my soulmate?” Harry asked, horrified. “I thought… maybe the house itself was alive.”

Hermione and Neville stared at him curiously.

“You said it raised you when we were on the train, right?” Hermione queried. “Having an _older_ soulmate is just as odd as finding one so young… what are the chances?”

“Older?” he squeaked.

“Odder still that they didn’t show their face,” Neville mused. He didn’t seem so weak and wimpy now, only thoughtful.

“Soulmate…?” Harry whispered. They smiled at him — Hermione gave him a little sort of pat on his leg —and then their boat knocked into the cave harbor under the school.

“Neville, your toad!” Hermione scolded as they climbed out of the boat. Blushing, he scooped up Trevor again, and they walked up the rocky passageway onto the lawn of the castle. There was a huge door set in the side of the castle there, and Hagrid lifted his meaty hand to pound on it three times, just the same way as when he found Harry in the shack.

As they waited to be Sorted — ignoring Ron who was talking nonsense about it being painful and calming Hermione who _definitely_ already knew it was just a silly hat from reading _Hogwarts: A History_ like Harry had — he helped Neville sort out his cloak and Hermione helped him flatten his hair as much as it would go. Draco let out a noisy breath again, but Harry just laughed at him. “ _You_ don’t have anything that needs to be fixed, be nice.”

He could have sworn Draco’s cheeks pinked.

When ghosts started swirling about talking about the poltergeist Hermione had mentioned, Harry reddened up a bit himself. His house was no ghost, apparently. But — _soul_ mate…?

Hermione was the first of his new friends to be Sorted. “GRYFFINDOR!” the hat called. For Neville: “GRYFFINDOR!” But then for Draco “SLYTHERIN!”

Then, his name was called. His ears burned as whispers filled the _entire_ hall, but he stepped forward gamely, trying to get over the sudden jump of nerves that had him worrying the hat would sit dead on his head.

Then… pride, love, excitement. His house, his _soulmate_ was here. The emotions had cut on like a lightswitch had been flipped, so unlike the gradual build in volume he experienced when he walked up the lawn of the house. No longer afraid, he looked around agitatedly once he was on the stool but then the hat was on his head and he couldn’t see anything anymore.

 _“Hmm,”_ came a tiny voice… a vaguely male whispered — or was it a low-voiced female? _“Difficult, very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see, not a bad mind either — not often I see so many recipes in one head before school starts, hmm… and love, so much love for your invisible soulmate ah, but you are loved in return as well. You are determined to prove yourself to them and to others but the talent, oh my yes… but where shall I put you?”_

 _‘I made two friends you just sorted to Gryffindor,’_ Harry supplied helpfully in his head.

_“Are you certain about that? Those two in your head will be loyal friends no doubt… but Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, it’s all right here…”_

_“I_ have _met someone there, but would still prefer Hermione and Neville,”_ Harry argued politely. _“I will keep your advice in mind though. Gryffindor, please.”_

 _“Well, if you’re sure… then…_ GRYFFINDOR!”

The hat came off in a rush and Harry blinked at the roaring table to his left where a whole contingency of Gryffindors were screaming their heads off. The twins he’d seen on the train were chanting ‘we got potter,’ over and over, and Hermione and Neville made a space between them for him to squeeze in.

“We’re all together!” Neville said, a bit _familiarly_ but Harry was happy anyway… he had _chosen_ them — and he had _friends_.

“My… soulmate is feeling nauseous,” Hermione whispered. “I suspect it’s the boy near the end… he’s looking a little green…”

“Mine is here too,” Harry whispered. “I felt _—_ oh, wait, it’s gone again.”

“You don’t feel it anymore?” Neville asked on his other side. “I thought I felt something in line but I’m not sure…”

“That’s wonderful, Neville!” Hermione congratulated. “Oh, dear. It is the redhead.”

 _'_ Ronald Weasley' marched up to the stool as if to his death, but the hat called out “GRYFFINDOR!” for him and then he was stumbling towards them, stunned.

“What do I do?” hissed Hermione.

“Say hello, I expect,” replied Harry, but Ron sat with his older brothers again, seemingly oblivious to his soulmate’s presence down the table.

The golden plates in front of everyone were a surprise. “ _My soulmate fed me on ones like these_!” he whispered hotly to Hermione and Neville.

“ _REALLY_ _ _,_ where were your guardians during all this_?” queried Hermione.

Up at the teacher’s table was Albus Dumbledore, whose beard and hair really were as long and wizard-y as they’d been on the card. Professor Quirrell and Hagrid were up there, and after the last sorting of ‘Zabini, Blaise,’ Professor McGonagall took her seat up there as well.

After the feast started, talk turned to everyone’s parents as one by one they revealed their backgrounds. Harry felt quite sorry for Neville who seemed to have been a late bloomer, magically speaking. Hermione struck up a conversation with their Prefect — another brother for Ron? — while Harry looked around, feeling as stuffed as he always did after his _soulmate_ fed him. He still had trouble wrapping his mind around the concept.

Peering up at the Head table, he caught eyes with the professor sitting beyond Quirrell, a black haired man with a rather unfortunate bump in his nose who gave him a thoughtful nod. He nodded back, feeling weird about nodding at a perfect stranger, when Quirrell’s turbaned head turned his way. He met eyes with the other man as well and a horrid, searing pain shot through the skin where his scar lay.

“Ow!” he cried, and a matching sensation of pain and then worry poured into him before it was cut off again. His soulmate was still here? But… only sometimes?

“What is it?” Percy asked.

“N-nothing,” Harry said, shaken by too many revelations that day. The pain was gone anyway, as if it had never been. Hermione or Neville might have called that ‘odd,’ he mused.

After receiving the warnings about the Forbidden Forest, Quidditch trials, and the third floor corridor being apparently deadly to all who entered, they sang a _very_ odd version of a school song and were sent off to bed.

Along the way they met Peeves, and Harry rescued Neville from being clonked on the head by a load of sticks the poltergeist was carrying. It seemed like his soulmate wasn't one of those, either. They went swiftly up to bed, and Harry found his trunk had been placed at the foot of the four-poster right next to Hermione’s soulmate’s; it looked like they were neighbors.

“Gnite, Harry!” Neville called from across the room.

“Night,” he answered.

“Good food, wasn’t it?” asked Ron, but Harry had already fallen asleep by that point.

That night, he dreamed of being stabbed in the head by Quirrell, and being rescued by the bump-nosed professor on a unicorn that turned into a flying motorcycle until a flash of green light startled him awake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like anything that anyone said, then J.K. Rowling probably wrote it, not me, haha. ^_^
> 
> Sorry for the long wait whilst I was on vacation, hope you enjoyed this chapter!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry attends Potions and Flying classes.

# Chapter Three

    His first week of school was wonderful and frightening. He was mostly afraid of getting lost, though, which was a delightful change over being frightened that Dudley might be waiting for him in the playground at recess. Hermione was clearly the best in _all_ their classes, and Neville needed a lot of encouragement. Ron Weasley seemed to still be clueless about Hermione being his soulmate, and Hermione visibly shrunk into herself whenever the redhead noticed her raising her hand with an answer. It seemed Ron didn’t think too kindly of her enthusiasm, which bothered Harry greatly, even though otherwise the boy was an okay bloke.

    On Friday morning Hedwig brought Harry his first-ever mail, a note from Hagrid asking if he’d like to have tea. He replied with a happy 'yes,' and Hermione, Neville, and he set off for their first class of the day, Potions.

    “ _I_ heard he’s quite strict,” Hermione said worriedly. “But _Percy_ said that it used to be much worse... that he’d mellowed out since his older brother Bill went here. His other brother Charlie just graduated last year, you know, and Percy says he mentioned it every year: ‘Professor Snape was acting weird again.’ _Percy_ thinks it’s _more_ strange to think a teacher shouldn’t be reasonable and I _quite_ agree.”

    “I guess we’ll see soon enough,” said Harry, hiding his own nerves. He hoped Potions would go well. He wanted to make his disembodied soulmate proud of him.

    If Professor Snape was anything, as it turned out, it was _dramatic._ Not in the crazy way the women in Petunia’s soaps were, but in quiet, slow movements and the hushed tone of his voice. He caught the entire class in his spell with a hypnotic speech that had Harry’s stomach tightening with excitement to learn. Then with a swell and snap of his robes, he whirled on the class.

    “Malfoy! What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”

    “Draught of the Living Death, sir.”

    “Potter! Where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar.”

    Harry froze for a moment before realizing _'I know this!'_

    “Er, in a goat. It’s a stone-hard ball of hair in a goat’s stomach.”

    “Now, girl, if you can’t wait _one more_ moment, what is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?”

    “Hermione Granger, sir! And they’re the same plant!” she called out excitedly. “And they also go by the name of aconite. They were given these names by differ—”

    “Alright, _Granger_ , silly girl, sit down.”

    Professor Snape steepled his fingers together with a hard look at all of them, but when their eyes met… Harry thought he could _almost_ see pride there.

    “It seems… _maybe_ there is hope for this batch of students,” he said calmly. “Let’s begin.”

    Harry was paired up with Neville, and they used his cauldron to mix their potion. The Professor stalked around the classroom, criticizing almost everyone, but offering timely corrections in equal measure. Harry listened carefully to each of these private instructions for future use, which ended up ensuring his downfall as he didn’t notice Neville adding their porcupine quills _before_ they had lowered the flame.

    Running on pure instinct, Harry pushed Neville out of the way as soon as the hissing started, and his reward was the melting cauldron splashing over him instead. As he stood there, shocked, a rash of painful boils spread all along his outstretched arms and hands.

    “Ow,” he moaned piteously. The round blisters _burned_ and stung as they swelled into existence on his skin.

    “Idiot boy!” Professor Snape hissed, though his hand was gentle as he guided Harry away from the growing mess. “ _Five_ points from Gryffindor for jumping into a failing potion! You!” he snarled, pointing at Neville. “Are you hurt, or did the Gryffindor _hero_ fail to save you properly?”

    The Slytherins were giggling at his expense, but the supportive hand on his shoulder was still warm, so Harry thought maybe the Professor didn’t mean it the way they took it. Or it sounded. He _was_ in a lot of pain though, and might not be thinking clearly.

    “I’m n-not hurt,” stammered Neville. He seemed terrified of the looming man.

    “Then be _useful_ and take Potter to the Hospital wing. _Quickly._ ”

    The Matron there did not seem surprised to see him. “There’s always one,” she sighed. “This won't take long at all. Professor Snape always refills my Boil Cure before the first lesson for this very reason. You can be assured _his_ wont react like yours.”

    “I’m sorry Harry,” Neville said miserably. “I couldn’t see the flame from above and just assumed it was out. I’ve never had to do much on my own before. My gran was always there.”

    “It’s alright Nev,” Harry said, though his voice was strained with the pain. His skin between the boils had started to thicken and harden, making every movement tear the skin on the inside of his elbows and between his fingers. “ _I’ve_ had to do too much on my own. We’ll balance each other out.”

    One he was free of the Matron's tender care Harry made it to Hagrid’s, his arms to remain wrapped up like a mummy until nightfall. Hermione was in the library — looking up soulmates again — but Harry was able to convince Neville to go with him, though the boy was scared of Fang at first and then scared again to learn of the break in at Gringotts.

    Harry began to feel frustrated with just how often Neville was _scared_.

    Despite Harry’s promise to balance with Neville, the next lesson Professor Snape singled the skittish boy out to work up front with him, and Harry then worked alone. His potion came out quite alright, he thought, quite close to how the book said it would be, and Neville, under the professor’s sharp eye, managed a working potion as well.

    “That’s great Nev!” Harry cheered as they left. The timid boy beamed with pride.

    That delicate pride took a nasty blow when he rocketed off course during flying practice, and fell off his broom. “Broken wrist,” Madam Hooch muttered to herself.

    “Did you see his _face?”_ Draco laughed as soon as they were out of sight.

    “Shut up, Malfoy,” Parvati demanded as Harry gasped out “Draco! He was really hurt!”

    “Ooh, Sticking up for Longbottom? Never thought you’d like fat little crybabies, Parvati,” Pansy Parkinson taunted cruelly. She was a friend of Draco’s, and Harry liked her even less than him. At least Draco _tried_ sometimes.

    Like now. “No, Pansy.” His gaze returned to Harry, frustrated but gritting his teeth through it. “They’re right. A fall like that would have been really painful. It wasn’t funny.”

    Harry smiled encouragingly, and Draco rolled his eyes. “But what is funny,” the blonde boy said, smirking teasingly at the Gryffindor as he walked out in front of them all, “is _this._ ” He picked up Neville’s brand-new Remembrall from the ground. “Hard to remember what you’ve forgotten if you leave it in the grass, huh?”

    “Alright, Draco,” Harry sighed. “Give it here, I’ll get it back to him.”

    “What if _I_ want it?” Draco smirked, throwing a leg over his broom. “You going to come get it, Potter?”

    He rolled his eyes right back at the Slytherin. “I’ve never been on a real broom before. Just hand it back, no games.”

    “Come on, Potty,” Draco teased some more. The Slytherins sniggered at him, but Draco wasn’t paying attention to them, only to Harry.

    “Why do you let him talk to you that way?” grumbled Ron as Harry threw his own leg over his broom.

    “We’re kind of friends,” Harry explained. Ron looked horrified.

    “Harry, you _can’t_ ,” Hermione said, grabbing the sleeve of his robe. “You heard Madam Hooch… you’ll get us all in trouble!”

    Ron, standing next to Hermione, was staring at her as if she’d just grew another head on her shoulders. It seemed he’d finally noticed his soulmate, though his expression was not at _all_ flattering. Harry kicked off, rather than be next to _that_ drama as it unfolded.

    “I’m up here now, give it back, Draco.”

    “I don’t think so, Scarhead.”

    “What’s up with all the nicknames?” Harry grouched.

    “It’s interesting, and you’ve been ignoring me for weeks now. Catch!” He was smiling widely as he threw the glass ball up in the air, high above the ground.

    “Draco!” he complained, but his eyes were on the ball, following its arc, he was already pushing himself to catch it…

    “HARRY POTTER!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who is this Potions Professor who does not single out and verbally abuse his student on the first class they have together? Hmm...


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, major thanks to J.K. Rowling. Thank you for being so generous and not suing fanfiction writers who use your quotes in their work <3

# Chapter Four

* * *

* * *

    Draco cornered Harry outside the Great Hall after dinner, just hours after having gotten him in trouble.

    “Sorry, Harry. Have you been expelled, then?”

“No, I’m on the Gryffindor Quidditch team instead.”

    “ _What_?!”

    “Yeah. 'Youngest seeker in a century,' Wood said. So thanks then, Draco.” Harry smirked at the boy, mirroring his favorite expression.

    “I don’t want to be your friend anymore,” the blonde said, unexpectedly.

    “What? Why?” Harry’s mouth hung open in shock.

    “I’m mostly joking. But also super pissed off. _I_ want to be Seeker too!” The Slytherin _did_ look properly angry.

    “Er… sorry?”

    Draco clenched his fists a few times, before speaking again. “Whatever. I’ll see you around, _Potty._ ”

    “Bye, Draco,” Harry said sadly. He’d had to work hard to tolerate the other boy, but still felt bereft thinking their brief friendship was at an end. He was a thrilling sort of acquaintance, one who Harry never knew what he might do next... be awful, or pull it together.

    That night, Neville didn’t come to bed at all. At near midnight, Harry decided to search for him. He couldn’t sleep anyway without knowing where his accident-prone friend was. In the common room, Hermione and Ron sat far apart from each other on the couches, and were seemingly locked in a tense, unhappy conversation.

    “Harry,” she called, brightening upon seeing him. “What are you doing up so late?”

    “Neville’s missing,” he said. “Have you heard from him?”

    “No,” she said frowning. “Could he have forgotten the password again?”

    Harry winced. “I hope not. It’s so late.”

    “Let’s go see.”

    For some reason, Ron followed along too. He glared at Hermione as if he wasn’t done with his part of their conversation. Harry kept a cool eye on him, but trusted the strong girl to keep him in line.

    They peered out the portrait hole together, but it was pitch black in the hallways with the torches unlit, and they couldn't see anything

    “Let's go out a bit…” Harry said.

    “We don't want to get caught!” Hermione snapped. “ _I_ don't want to lose the house Cup to Slytherin this year, do you?”

    “Oh, _come_ on,” Ron growled at her, stepping fully out of the common room in challenge. Harry followed.

    “Harry!” Hermione hissed, but she followed too.

    “How can we see? It's so dark,” Harry muttered to himself.

    “ _Now_ what are we going to do?” asked Hermione shrilly, looking back at the portrait of the Fat Lady who had gone conspicuously missing.

    “Ugh,” complained Harry. “Let's just look around a bit. We may want to hide until she gets back… wouldn't like to run into Filch at this hour…”

    “What's that?” Ron said suddenly. “Oh, it's him. He's here.”

    Neville startled awake, coming to at the sight of three Gryffindors staring down at him.

    “Oh, thank goodness you found me! I —'”

    “Couldn't remember the password,” Hermione finished for him on a sigh. “We can't go back right now, anyway. The Fat Lady's gone.”

    “What should w-we do?” Neville stuttered. Harry didn't know if it was because he was afraid again or if because it _was_ rather cold in the hall.

    “Might as well walk around a bit,” said Ron, seeming rather eager. “Never been around at night, have we?”

    “That's because it's _against the rules_ ,” Hermione sniped. “I should go tell your brother right now!”

    “Well you can't,” Ron snapped back. “None of us can, so I say we make the best of it.”

    “What's that?” Harry asked, hearing an odd jingling sound.

    “Mrs. Norris,” Neville whispered, terrified.

    “Run!” Ron urged.

    They didn't need another hint. They bolted, all in the same direction. They heard Filch, then, too, and took the closest staircase, then another hallway, and another staircase, on and on but the sounds of pursuit stuck with them.

    “Only a door now,” Ron moaned, testing the handle. “It’s _locked._ We're trapped for sure.”

    “Oh, get over, _alohomora_!”

    They all crammed into the dark room and shut the door firmly behind them.

    “Do you hear him?” Harry asked softly. But then they did — searching and coming up empty, Filch was heard turning away. But annoyingly enough, Neville was still tugging on his sleeve repetitively, driving him up insane.

    “ _What_ , Nev?!”

    “L-look…”

    There, behind them, was an absolutely massive three-headed dog. And it was awake, and staring right back at him. _They were going to die_.

    “Out, out, out!” cried Ron, yanking the door back open and shoving them all out. The dog growled — so incredibly loudly — and they slammed the door on it before it could get any ideas about using them as a chew-toy.

    Terrified out of their wits, they ran faster than ever before right back to the common room door, where the Fat Lady sat in her nightgown, staring at them incredulously.

    “Where on earth have you all been?”

    Harry was the first to speak. “Never mind that — pig snout, pig snout.”

    They all tumbled in and shut the door behind them, this time feeling a whole lot safer in their common room.

    “Well, you lot are fun,” Ron remarked. “Why do you think they have that giant dog like that in the school anyway? If any dog needs exercise, that one does.”

    Hermione rounded on him. “You never use your eyes, do you?” she yelled. “Didn't you see what was under its feet? Of course not. It was standing on a trap door.”

    “Hermione,” Harry said quellingly. “He saved us.”

    She deflated, but turned towards the girl's staircase anyway. “I'm going to bed. Try not to drag me into anymore crazy schemes that might get us all killed or worse, expelled.”

    Harry was silent as she went. Between what was happening between her and her soulmate and almost dying, he didn’t know how to navigate all the things she must have been feeling, just then.

    Ron slotted into their friendship _almost_ smoothly after that. He and Hermione fought all the time but he wasn't as tremulous as Neville nor as swotty as the witch and he seemed genuinely interested when Harry talked about the package being taken from the vault _the very day it was going to be broken into._ They both agreed that it was surely what was hidden under the trapdoor.

    Draco, on the other hand, was furious with him again. Harry had been given a broom as an anonymous gift shortly before Halloween, shiny and new and _perfect_. In response to that reaction, Harry was frustrated — the other boy had _just_ let Harry talk to him again before the broom came. Ron goaded Draco about his jealousy but Harry did his best to wrangle him into unity the way he'd always tried to tame the Slytherin. It seemed he was destined to be surrounded by difficult friends.

    The morning of Halloween they all had Charms together. Harry was partnered with Seamus and thought that he was doing pretty well for himself — the Levitation Charm was one of the ones he'd practiced the movements to on Privet Drive. Seamus on the other hand, was not having any luck at all and ended up setting their feather on fire.

    Still, it was better than Ron and Hermione, who were bickering hotly as Hermione tried to correct his pronunciation.

    “I don't know how you can _stand_ her,” Ron grumbled after class. “Her as my soulmate? Never! She's a _nightmare._ ”

    Hermione rushed past them then, her cheeks shining with tears.

“Hermione!” Harry gasped, abandoning Ron to follow her at a jog. The witch darted into a girls bathroom, though, and Harry couldn't go _there._ “I'm so sorry, Hermione,” Harry called.

    “Please go away, Harry,” Hermione sobbed. “Just _go away…”_

    Hermione stayed there for the rest of the afternoon, despite Harry's attempts to cajole her back out. She even missed _class,_ which was a real indicator of the depth of her despair.

    “She just wanted you to do your best,” he sniped at Ron, who was refusing to go apologise.

    “Whatever,” the redhead said, uncomfortably. “She's got plenty of other friends.”

    Harry was two seconds away from beating him over the head and dragging him to the girl's toilet himself when they entered the Great Hall and the splendor of the decorations cleared his mind off all else. They were a little late getting to the feast, and another rushing person knocked Ron over in his haste to get through the doors.

    “Troll!” the man cried, and Harry realized with a shot of anger that it was _Professor Quirrell_ who had barrelled through them without a second glance. “In the dungeons — thought you ought to know.”

    Harry watched as the man then seemed to… yes, he'd fainted. Pandemonium broke out around them, but the Headmaster got everyone back under control rather quickly and directed them to their Houses.

    “We're not going back to the tower,” Harry told Ron determinedly. “Hermione is out there all alone!”

    “What are y-you doing?” Neville asked as they began to sneak away from the group.

    “Hermione doesn't know about the troll,” Harry told him. Blind fear swept across the chubby boy's face for a moment before he clenched his fists and followed right behind them.

    “T-then l-let's get her,” he said firmly, even though his voice shook more than ever.

    “Oh, all right, _fine_ ,” Ron grumbled. They hurried along, only pausing to hide in an alcove when Professor Snape hurried through the corridors past them. The teacher paused for just a moment near them — as if knowing they were out of their proper place — but then seemed to move on even more determinedly than before.

    “He's headed to the third floor,” Ron said, suspiciously, about to voice another thought but then—

    “What's that smell?” Neville spoke, and they all squinched their faces because it was _awful…_ dirty Dursley laundry and porta-johns… that's what Harry was reminded of.

    “Ugh,” Harry groaned, covering his nose. The giant, hulking form lurched into sight at the other end of the corridors, just coming out of the darkness beyond where they couldn't see. It bumbled along, grey and beastly with a gigantic club that scraped across the ground like an entire tree trunk being dragged around by a Muggle excavator.

    Harry and Ron were relieved when it ducked into a room down the hall, but Neville clutched at Harry's arm with an iron grip. “That's the girl's loo!” he cried.

    “Hermione!” Ron and Harry shouted together. A pale, thin scream came from the room, and they were running, all three of them without thinking, their only thought to get to the witch inside.

    “Confuse it!” Harry cried when they saw it slowly advancing on their friend. And so they did their best, hollering and throwing things, while Harry tried his level best to pry Hermione off the wall where she was frozen.

    He'd used all his strength, dragging her a few steps away when the troll stepped on Neville, who was trying to trip the troll into falling down.

    His screams rang in Harry's ears punishingly, his leg a disorienting shape when the troll stumbled away.

    “Heh, heh, heh,” the troll chuckled stupidly at the shuddering lump on the floor.

    Harry saw red. He yelled out a battlecry of wordless rage as he jumped on the trolls back, and it hollered in pain as his wand jammed up its nose in the process.

    “W-wingardium leviosa!” he heard Ron cry out, and Harry hung on for dear life as the giant club rose from the ground and then crashed down on the troll's skull.

    “You okay Nev?” Harry asked immediately once free of the thing, dropping to his knees beside the boy.

    “Leg,” he cried, tears and snot marking lines all over his face. “My leg!”

    “Let’s get you to the hospital wing, er —” he looked to Ron and Hermione, but they were looking at each other, uncertain and hopeful and Harry realized they must be feeling each other’s relief that the other was okay.

    A loud noise echoed in the hall outside, and then a flurry of running steps before Professors McGonagall, Snape, and lastly Quirrell came barging through the door.

    “Oh, my, Mr. Longbottom, the hospital wing — quickly,” their Head of House murmured quickly upon seeing them. " _Mobilicorpus_..."

    “What were you all doing out of your dormitory?” Professor Snape demanded, hovering over the troll with his wand out while Quirrell sank, clutching his chest on a toilet seat. “How _dare_ you put yourselves in danger like this?!”

    He met Harry’s eyes furiously where the boy still sat, lost, on the floor next to where Neville had been writhing just seconds earlier.

    He opened his mouth to reply, to explain, but Hermione spoke up first. “Please, Professor Snape — they were looking for me,” she said earnestly.

    The stern professor’s lips thinned and he looked away from Harry to the witch, stepping away from the troll with his wand still drawn to check them over for injuries.

    “I went looking for the troll because I — I thought I could deal with it on my own — you know, because I’ve read all about them.”

    Harry and Ron looked at each other, minds boggled. Hermione, _lying_ to a teacher? On _purpose_?

    “Lies,” hissed the professor, but he still laid a calm hand on Harry’s back to guide them out of the broken-up room. “The truth, now, if you will.”

    “We did come looking for Hermione,” confessed Harry. He hadn’t felt right about lying to the Potions professor anyway. He had a lot of respect for the man, and wanted to do well to impress his soulmate with his _real_ potions over the holidays, the way he did with his toy cauldron. It was a relief to tell the truth. “She was upset and didn’t know the troll was in the school, so we wanted to bring her back to the common room. It went into the girl’s lavatory and we heard her scream… we couldn’t leave her there.”

    He glanced back at the two behind them, who were studiously avoiding looking at each other. He tried not to resent them for having their soulmate nearby so soon after a crisis, and to not become frustrated with how they didn’t seem to appreciate each other the way he loved his.

    “Thank you, Mr. Potter. That loyalty to your friend is a prize to be cherished, but I cannot reward the recklessness displayed here tonight. In the future, if you — or any of your friends — are in trouble you must go to a professor _first,_ do you understand me?”

    “Yes, sir,” they replied in unison.

    “Five points each from Gryffindor,” he said firmly. “Including Mr. Longbottom. Next time, if you go to a professor first, I will make sure you are _rewarded_ five points instead. Are we understood?”

    “Yes, sir.” Harry’s eyes shone with gratitude that the punishment wasn’t worse, that his professor wasn’t more angry. He had seen the older man’s temper a few times before; it was _scary_ when he got going.

    “Mr. Potter,” Professor Snape called after Hermione and Ron slipped through the portrait hole. Harry turned back, surprised by the forbidding face the man made.

    “You have been a satisfactory student, so far,” Professor Snape said. “It would be disappointing if you lied to me again.” His face was harsh, and his voice even moreso, but even still Harry could _see_ in those dark eyes… the softness he wasn’t letting out. It was like a secret peek to the other man’s soul, similar to feeling his invisible soulmate’s emotions.

    “I _am_ sorry, sir,” he said, suitably chastised. Professor Snape nodded, and spun on his heel.

“Pig snout,” Harry told the Fat Lady again, still thinking about the emotions deep in the professor’s gaze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
> 
> I confess... sometimes when I read fics where the events of the first few years are rehashed I get bored. I have been keeping that in mind while writing this one... trying to do what I can not to write in a way that might encourage your mind to say "oh, this again. let's just skip until something new happens." I'm trying not to fall into the trap of writing as if you already know everything, because that always makes *me* feel like I don't need to read whatever is coming. I frequently have to stop myself from writing "The broom came as expected..." "the troll cornered Hermione in the bathroom, but this time..." and try to present everything as if you guys haven't memorized HP from cover to cover already XD
> 
> Happy Saturday, see you next week! <3


	5. Chapter 5

# Chapter Five

* * *

* * *

    The Friday before his very first Quidditch match, Hermione, Ron, Neville, and Harry were sitting in the cold outside, huddled around a neat little flame Hermione had conjured in a glass jar. They were relaxing, chatting and having a rather argument-free time when they spotted Professor Snape limping across the grass. His eyes slid over them as he walked towards the school, but he jerked away once he met Harry’s gaze and hurried faster inside.

    “What’s up with him, you think?” Ron asked uncaringly.

    “I hope he’s okay,” Harry fretted. “What if it’s really hurting him?”

    “Madam Pomfrey will take care of it,” Hermione said soothingly. While she knew Potions wasn’t his favorite subject, she also understood it’s the one he _cared_ most about, and both of them liked their surly but fair professor.

    “I still think he’s a greasy snake,” Ron muttered. Hermione and Harry both cuffed him on the back of the head simultaneously, and Neville laughed at the look on the redhead’s face.

    “You know better than to say that to them,” he chided the shocked boy.

 

* * *

 

    Later that evening, Harry couldn’t get that limping figure out of his head. “I’m going out for a bit,” he told his three friends, not wanting to explain the growing need to see a professor they barely knew. He knew it was improper. What kind of student set out to see a teacher _socially_? But that limp had looked quite bad, so Harry knocked on the staff room door, pulling all his Gryffindor bravery together.

    No response. He knocked again, and then became aware of muted, hazy emotions filtering through to him. Pain, strong pain. His whole being was taken over by it… and frustration — anger. _His soulmate was hurt!_ He shoved open the door immediately, and the most awful sight he’d ever seen was laid out before him.

    Shock filtered through before the emotions cut off abruptly. Before him, Professor Snape sat, his exposed calf and shin bearing long, bleeding gouges where the flesh had clearly been ripped apart. The devastating sight was quickly covered up, and Harry met the man's eyes in shock and horror. Filch sat on the floor by his feet, watching on as the interaction played out in front of him.

    “Professor,” Harry stammered. “What—”

    “It is fine, Mr. Potter,” his teacher replied, voice tight with what must be considerable pain. Pain that Harry had _felt..._

    “The hospital wing — you _must_ go —”

    “I cannot, Mr Potter,” he replied with everlasting patience. “No one can know about this injury. Only very certain people. Can I trust you with this information, or should I help you forget?” Filch gave him a sharp look — Harry could see it out of his peripheral view — but he was caught, falling into those black tunnels Professor Snape had instead of eyes.

    “I won't tell, sir,” he said, somewhat thinly. He shook himself out of it. “But sir, your — your leg…”

    “Mr. Filch is helping me,” Professor Snape said firmly. “What did you need?”

    “I was… just worried, sir.”

    His eyebrows rose, obviously surprised by this turn of events. “Well, thank you, Mr. Potter. As you can see, I will be alright. Back to your tower, then.”

    Harry frowned, and wanted to protest — wanted to _help —_ but then looked to Filch, waiting for Harry to leave with his roll of bandages and wanted that leg properly taken care of far more.

    “See you, sir,” he said reluctantly, and fled.

    By the time he arrived back in the tower, he had a plan. He grabbed Hermione and pulled her to the side urgently, determination in every line of his body. “I can’t tell you why," he said to her, "but can you teach me that flame spell. Please?”

    Hermione frowned. “I don’t want to be a part of breaking the rules. Little things we’ve done recently are _quite_ enough…”

    “It’s not against the rules,” Harry said quickly, “but it does have to do with someone else’s secret. I can’t tell you why but I need to do that spell — and _tonight._ ”

    “Okay…” She was skeptical, but she taught him until he could make flames of different sizes and heat strengths. He’d had so much practice with wand movements before arriving at Hogwarts that by that point it was really only the pronunciation and focusing his intent that gave him trouble for long.

    That night, hunched in a shower stall in the dorm bathroom, scouring through his _Magical Drafts and Potions_ book and having scrounged together every last bit of his beginner potions kit, he painstakingly brewed every last first-year wound-healing potion he could in the time he had before morning. He couldn’t do much, but he _could_ do this.

    He didn’t fall into bed until near four, but still he slept lightly, nervous about the game the next day, and delivering his midnight potions to the actual Potions _Master._

    The professor found him wandering in the dungeons before breakfast in the morning.

    “Mr. Potter,” he greeted, standing in a doorway Harry didn't remember ever seeing before.

    “Ah, hi, er — good morning, Professor,” Harry greeted politely. “I, um, wanted to give these to you.” He held out the labeled potion bottles and the professor took them carefully, as if concerned about dropping them.

    “I, er… know it's just beginner's work,” Harry said, feeling a hot flush rise up on his face, “but I wanted to help.”

    “You made these last night?” his teacher asked softly.

    “Yeah,” Harry answered, scratching his nose and looking anywhere except for those probing eyes.

    “Wait here, Mr. Potter,” Professor Snape ordered. He then disappeared into the room behind him, which appeared to be some sort of an office complete with gross things floating in various sized jars. Harry could see him poking about a set of shelves before returning to the door, two bottles — one green and one a kind of dark teal color — in hand.

    “What is the Wideye Potion, Mr. Potter?” he asked then, as if they were in class.

    Harry frowned. They hadn't covered that one in class, but he knew it from his textbook. “It keeps the one who takes it from falling asleep. It works as an antidote to the Draught of the Living Death.”

    “Very good,” he praised. “And Invigoration Draught?”

    “I… I don't know sir,” he said. “It… invigorates the drinker?”

    “Yes, well, I guess that was obvious,” the man conceded. “It is a fifth year potion, not in your book. It gives _energy._ The kind of energy a sleepy young seeker would need for his first-ever game of Quidditch.”

    Harry’s eyes widened. “Th-thank you sir!”

    “Six drops of this after a full breakfast, _only,_ ” he warned, handing Harry the Wideye Potion. “That should be enough to get you through the game. Do you have a dropper?”

    “Yes, sir.”

    “You may keep the rest, but do not abuse it. Going without sleep can drive a person mad before the end of a week. Never take more than a single drop per hour you need to keep your eyes open. For the Draught, two healthy swallows before you go on the field should get you through a long game. And Mr. Potter,” he said, not letting go of the Invigoration Draught even as Harry tugged a bit, “do not tell anyone about this. Especially Mr. Malfoy, do you understand?”

    Gryffindor was playing against Slytherin that day. As their Head of House, Professor Snape could lose a lot of credibility within the insular and often unpleasantly behaved house. “Of course,” he stammered instead of saying any of this aloud. “He’s not talking to me right now anyway.”

    The Professor nodded, kindly not mentioning the bitter note in Harry's last few words. “Good luck today, Mr. Potter.”

    “Thanks. I, um… hope you feel better.”

    The door closed.

 

* * *

 

    Harry took the potions exactly as prescribed and was amazed to feel them work exactly as he needed them to. He didn’t have much experience taking potions, just the few topical ones he’d tested in class — not to mention the boil cure that had coated his arms and hands that first Friday — and as the energy flowed through his veins as if he’d gotten half-a-day’s rest instead of just three hours, he felt strong, and giddy with excitement.

    As the whistle blew, he was nervous, but happy to be kicking off with the rest of the team. His blood surged in his veins, he felt like he could take on the world and then the Moon for dessert... though the Slytherin Captain Flint nearly knocking him off his broom as he sped past the older boy brought him back to reality rather abruptly. He may be average sized for his age, but this was a older kid’s sport and he needed to keep his smaller stature in mind, or he could _die_. How many times that week had he been warned of that fact? The Slytherin team was  _not_ playing fair.

    Then, without warning, his broom didn’t play fair either. He first was a bit annoyed, but then as it refused to listen to him at all and he realized he was hanging onto a glorified _stick_ high up in the air, he could only cling on for dear life. It spun, it jerked, it swirled, and the whole while Harry clenched his teeth and mentally _pleaded_ with every Muggle and Magical deity he’d ever heard of to save him. Fred and George circled tightly beneath him as he was bucked off and hanging on by his fingers, and Lee Jordan shouted frantically over the Sonorus Charm and he _knew_ Flint was over near the Gryffindor goal posts —

    And then, amidst the gasps and cries of horror down below, it stopped. Gasping and shaking and feeling a swamping sense of relief he _knew_ didn’t just come from himself — and indeed, shortly after it came through, the emotions shut out properly once more — he heaved himself back on the broom and lay shivering across the handle. He tilted the broom down, determined to land and get off the wretched thing when suddenly his panting mouth was full of a smooth, _fluttering_ thing.

    It rammed right down the back of his throat and he choked it back up, coughing and fighting the stomach-seizing urge to vomit as the _snitch_ plopped down into his palm.

    “I’ve got the snitch!” Frantically, he waved it over his head, but everyone’s eyes had already been on him anyway.

    “Gryffindor wins?” Lee queried over hollers of the crowd. “GRYFFINDOR WINS! ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY POINTS TO SIXTY AND THAT’S GAME OVER!”

 

* * *

 

    “It was Snape. Hermione, Nev, and I saw him. He was cursing your broomstick, muttering, he wouldn't take his eyes off you.”

    “Rubbish,” Hagrid said just as Harry replied hotly: “No, it _wasn't._ ”

    “Why would Snape do somethin’ like that?” Hagrid continued, more reasonably.

    Hermione looked miserable. “Harry… the limping… what if he tried to get past the three-headed dog?”

    “How do you know about Fluffy?”

    “ _Fluffy_?” Neville cracked incredulously.

    “Yeah — he's mine — bought him off a Greek chappie I met in the pub last year — I lent him to Dumbledore to guard the—”

    “Yes?” Harry prodded, speaking through the tight knot in his chest that had grown the moment Ron had spoken his suspicion.

    “Now, don't ask me anymore. That's top secret, that is.” Professor Snape had indicated the same thing.

    “But what if Snape is trying to steal it?” Ron demanded.

    But Hagrid didn't believe that for a second. “Rubbish. Snape's a Hogwarts teacher, he do nothing of the sort.” Harry glared at Ron too.

    “But he just tried to kill Harry,” wailed Hermione. Harry's heart squeezed again. He refused to believe it, not even from his kind, genius friend. _Couldn't_ believe it. “I know a Jinx when I see one, Hagrid, I've read all about them! You've got to keep eye contact, and Snape wasn’t blinking at all, I saw him!”

    “It's not _him!”_ Harry shouted. His head was heating and he was losing control…

    “I'm tellin’ yeh, yer wrong! I don't know why Harry's broom acted like that, but Snape wouldn’ try an’ kill a student! Now, listen to me, all four of yeh — yer meddlin’in things that don’ concern yeh. It's dangerous. You forget that dog, an’ you forget what it's guardin’, that's between Professor Dumbledore an’ Nicholas Flamel —”

    “Nicholas Flamel?” Neville spoke up.

    Hagrid kicked them out.

 

* * *

 

    That night, at dinner, Harry looked up at the staff table, pleading with his eyes for Professor Snape to turn and look at him and indicate that he was still a good teacher, was still someone to trust.

    And he _did_.

    He looked right into the eleven-year-old's face, shook his head slowly — almost imperceptibly, really — and then flicked his gaze over to Quirrell deliberately. Harry's breath caught in his throat, relief stinging his eyes, then anger as he narrowed them at the odd teacher.

    “Hermione,” he said lowly, not taking his eyes off the offending purple-turbaned Defense professor. “Was Quirrell in the stands when you set fire to Professor Snape?”

    “Shh!” she hissed, looking around frantically and catching Percy's attention in her poor attempt not to garner _any_ attention at all. “Yes, I think so, why — oh! Oh, thank _God_ , yes, it might have been him!”

    “It wasn't Professor Snape,” Harry said firmly. He trailed his gaze over to his favorite professor once more, but the man was glaring down equally over the entire crowd.

    “But, well, Quirrell seems so… _wilting…_ ”

    “He's hiding something,” Harry argued.

    “I wish I could apologize,” Hermione murmured. “Without getting expelled for it…”

    “Make some Burn-Healing Paste,” Harry said. “Send it via school owl with no name.”

    “Oh, but… he's a Master…”

    “It's the thought and the effort that matter, I would suppose,” Harry thought, thinking of his own probably-useless gifted potions accepted with great care that morning.

    “You know, I think you're right. I'll do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About Snape's office door not being visible unless it's open... I have no idea why i did that. I know it's not canon, i just liked the idea of it. Sorry, lol!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed <3 I finally made some headway past my writers block this week. I got stuck while writing the chapters that cover the summer before second year, and in the end I had to delete about a thousand words of 'meh' and just start that part over. I'm still going to post only once a week though... I'm nervous about getting so helplessly blocked again.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas Holdiays come to Hogwarts.

# Chapter Six

* * *

* * *

    “You’re staying at school for Christmas?” Draco asked some weeks later. Their breath fogged in front of them in the Potions classroom where Harry had found himself waylaid by the Slytherin after class.

    “Yeah,” he said, mouth turning down at the corners. He had really wanted to go visit his soulmate, now that he knew they were a _person._ But his owl had come back with a hastily scribbled _‘NO.’_ — the only reply to his paragraphs-long letter to the Dursleys.

    “Stay safe,” Draco said then, and walked away leaving Harry gaping behind him. It was the first time they’d talked since Harry had gotten his broom. It seemed that it wasn't just his close group of friends who were still concerned about his recent brush with danger.

    “Have a good hols,” Harry said softly. Draco ignored him.

    Professor Snape looked at him curiously as he too prepared to leave, and Harry gave a down-hearted little wave goodbye as he exited.

    He caught up with Ron, Hermione, and Neville just in time to prevent Ron and Draco from coming to blows in front of a gigantic Christmas tree being hauled by Hagrid.

    “Everything… well, here?” Professor Snape’s calm voice flowed over the scene after a minute of fierce peer mediation.

    “Absolutely,” panted Harry, a strong hand on both Ron and Draco’s chests.

    “Five points for lying. And five points for promoting inter-house unity.”

    “Er… so, zero points, then?”

    Professor Snape smirked. “Exactly.”

    The Slytherin contingency flowed away, and Ron muttered darkly “I wish both of them would get what’s coming to them.”

    Harry scowled at him. “Lay off. I _told_ you it’s not Professor Snape we need to worry about.”

    “Whatever,” Ron said, rolling his shoulders and striding after Hagrid into the Great Hall.

    Hermione took his arm in hers to follow, and Harry smiled at her for the support. Hermione and Neville had really become quite less complicated to be friends with since the ‘Troll Incident.’ Hermione bent the rules some and wasn’t so demanding they get everything right, and Neville seemed to keep the backbone he’d found when they’d gone after Hermione, even after getting his awful broken leg.

    Now, if only Ron and Draco could get with the program.

    Hagrid wasn’t happy about them researching Nicholas Flamel, but it turned out that he didn’t need to worry so much; they hadn’t found _anything_ and they’d been searching for weeks. Both Neville and Hermione thought they’d heard the name before, but with the witch having read every book she ever laid eyes on and Neville _forgetting_ every book he’d laid eyes on, that didn’t get them very far.

    Neville and Hermione were going home for the holidays, anyway. It was just Ron and Harry in the tower then, which was kind of nice since they hadn’t had a lot of chances to hang out before then. They played a lot of chess and ate quite a few marshmallows perfectly toasted in their common room fireplace, and on Christmas morning Harry woke to a much bigger pile of presents than the one or two he got from his soulmate each year.

    “Wow, I’ve got presents!” he exclaimed, but Ron just laughed at him for it.

    His soulmate’s gifts weren’t labeled, but he knew them anyway. A new Hogwarts uniform, thicker and woolen for Winter, and a restocked set of potions supplies, plus some extra ingredients they weren’t required to have — along with their matching cloth selves to add to his play set on Privet Drive.

    “Is that… a _plush_ knotgrass clump?” Ron asked incredulously.

    “It’s for my toy cauldron set back at, well, home, I guess,” Harry admitted, blushing and shoving them under the new robes.

    “So that’s why you’re so good at it,” Ron said, nodding as if that just explained a lot. “And a first-year potions set, but you already _have_ one.”

    “Well, I used it up a lot; it’s a very helpful gift!” Harry was starting to get irritated.

    “Who is that from anyway? Professor Snape? Is that why you think it’s not him?”

    “No,” Harry disagreed, blushing at the very thought of it. “It’s from my soulmate.”

    “Oh. You’ve never mentioned them.”

    “They helped raise me, I guess. I don’t know what they look like. I think they’re hiding because… they’re probably an adult already.”

    “That’s kinda rare,” Ron commented. “Weird. I guess they know you pretty well then, so I’ll leave off it.”

    “Thanks.”

    Hagrid gave Harry a flute, which he tried out to little success. The Dursleys gave Harry a fifty-pence piece, the best present he’d ever gotten from them, even if it was useless to him at a wizarding school. Even Ron’s _mother_ sent him a present, which was odd since they weren’t even all that good friends yet.

    “She makes us all one every year,” Ron complained. “ _Maroon,_ ugh.”

    Harry’s ‘Weasley sweater’ was a nice emerald green, and he wore it under his new warm robes to breakfast that morning. At the meal, he watched the head table nervously as Professor Snape was delivered a simply-cut crystal bottle — he’d been unable to transfigure anything fancier no matter how many hours he’d put into the ordinary flask it had been before. The Professor turned it over in his hands, read the note, and carefully avoided his gaze, though later Hedwig found him with a simple reply.

 

> ‘Thank you.
> 
> 'Merry Christmas,
> 
> Professor Snape’
> 
>  

    Harry tucked it under his pillow, not wanting it to get lost in the jumble of his trunk.

    A few days later, bored and exploring the castle, they found a magical mirror in an empty classroom. It showed them each something truly amazing… in it, Ron was showered with accolades and — this he confessed only in a whisper to Harry — even Hermione gazing with amazement at his success.

    To Harry though… it didn’t show the room behind them like it did for Ron. It showed the living room of number thirteen Privet Drive, with Professor Snape smiling warmly at him with his hand proudly on his shoulder… and mirror-Harry tilting his head the way _real_ Harry did everytime his soulmate had purposefully felt that warm familial love for him to enjoy. There were additional red-haired and black-haired adults beyond them, and Harry recognized himself in the man companionably standing beyond Professor Snape's shoulder, and his own green eyes in the woman who stood behind himself.

    Harry gaped… understood… and wanted…

    “I see you boys have discovered the delights of the Mirror of Erised.”

    Both jumped, so spellbound by the mirror that they hadn’t even heard the Headmaster’s approach.

    “The… what? Sir?” Harry stammered.

    “I expect you’ve realised by now what it does?”

    “It shows the future,” Ron spoke up hopefully.

    “Not quite. Let me explain. The happiest man on Earth would be able to use the Mirror of Erised said like a normal mirror, that is, he would be able to look into it and see himself exactly as he is. Does that help?”

    “It shows… what you want to happen. Whatever you want,” Harry guessed next. He glanced back again at the contented affection shining on his Professor's face. It was difficult to look away.

    “Yes, and no. It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. However… this mirror will give us neither knowledge or truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they've seen, or being driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible.

    "The mirror will be moved to a new home in a few moments, and I ask you not go looking for it again. If you ever _do_ run across it, you will now be prepared. It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that. Now, I do believe a snowball fight is being planned out on the front lawn. Why don't you run along and join in the fun?”

    Harry and Ron both obediently scampered off, thankful that their explorations didn't cost them any house points.

    Now, if only Harry could stop the nightmares the Mirror had seemed to inspire from him… terrible screams, laughter, a flash of green light, and then that all- _encompassing_ pain and love.

    A few weeks into the new term, Harry found out Professor Snape would be refereeing the next game. The other players groaned about the Head of _Slytherin_ policing their actions, but Harry glowed internally. He thought of the Mirror, of the intense pain he'd felt as he'd entered the staff room where the Professor sat, tending to his injury, and the way his eyes had purposefully flicked over to Quirrell as if knowing _exactly_ what Harry had been feeling the night of the last match. He glowed, but he didn't say a word to anyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A gentle increase in Harry's awareness of a certain Professor...


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Gryffindors find out what is hidden. Harry disappoints Professor Snape in a big way, and swears to never do it again.

# Chapter Seven

* * *

* * *

    One evening, Neville fell through the portrait hole, legs stuck together as if they were bound.

    “Leg-locker Curse,” he explained, and Hermione performed the counter while the older years laughed at him. “It was Parkinson. Draco stopped her the first time, but then she snuck back around and got me down the hallway.” He nodded at Harry as he spoke, knowing that his odd friendship with the Slytherin boy was what kept him docile.

    “Go to McGonagall! Report her!” Hermione said.

    “She’s a _girl,_ Hermione. And _I_ know that's fine, but I don't want the teasing that will come from being… well, _me_ , and having been beaten by a girl.”

    “ _We_ know girls are awesome, of course,” Harry said, darting cautious eyes at Hermione as he spoke, “but, yeah, I get that. Here, mate.” Harry gave Neville the Chocolate frog he'd been about to eat. “You're worth twelve of Parkinson, at _least_.”

    “Thanks Harry,” Neville said warmly. He promptly ate the gifted chocolate and then turned the card over to see the back, gasping after a moment. “Harry! The card! Look!”

    He shoved the card into Harry's hands who read the description there. “You've found him, Nev!” he exclaimed. Afterwards, there followed a great flurry of activity and then a swell of dust as an ecstatic Hermione thumped a large book down on the table, and there it was, all laid out.

    Quirrell was after the _Philosopher's Stone._

    “No _wonder_ why he's after it!” Harry crowed. “It _stops you from dying_! Quirrell, who's afraid of _everything_! It's perfect!”

    In the following weeks before the Quidditch match — which Harry _was_ going to play in, thank you very much, Fred and George — he seemed to be running into Professor Snape wherever he went. Once or twice Quirrell was around too… and at those times Harry was grateful for his stoic protector.

    Dumbledore was in the stands at the game. Professor Snape looked absolutely _forbidding_ as they marched out onto the field together. Oliver had warned Harry to catch the snitch fast, but Harry was excited to be in the air, hovering above it all, watching his professor calling penalties on both teams for all sorts of reasons.

    By coincidence, it was staring down at Professor Snape that led Harry to catching sight of the snitch. The crowd gasped as he plunged downwards on his broom, but he was single-minded in his pursuit of the golden ball. Mostly. He came rather close to ploughing through the Professor, which was scary for the split second he thought it would happen.

    He felt a surge of fear echoing back at him, then shocked relief, then it shut again. Harry tucked the occurrence into the back of his mind with the others and showed Professor Snape the snitch proudly. With a sharp cut of the Professor’s hand, Lee announced their win, nearly five minutes after the start of the game. They landed near to each other, and Harry opened his mouth to say — something — to the man, but then he was overrun by a swarm of Gryffindors screaming his name.

    Later, clean and happy out of the changing rooms, Harry spotted a shrouded figure making quick time to the Forbidden Forest. He wasn’t supposed to know who it was — that was obvious from the cloak and hood — but he did anyway. That was Professor Snape’s strong gait. He was acting rather… sneaky.

    Harry wanted to follow, but… if his suspicions were correct… then the man would  _know_...

    He followed anyway.

    Quirrell was waiting for the man in the forest. He was shivering and shrinking away from every little shadow, and the Forest was full of them. Harry could barely understand him as he whimpered and stuttered before Professor Snape’s formidable presence.

    “Mr. Potter,” Professor Snape greeted as Harry hovered silently behind him on the way back to the castle.

    Harry sped up a bit to go ahead of him, and fell sideways on his broom so that he hung upside-down in front of the professor as he flew. “It’s a good thing I know you’re on my side. If _Ron_ had seen that same conversation, he’d think you were after the Stone again.”

    His teacher’s eyes slid over his grip on the broom. “You look like a monkey.”

    Harry turned over again. “No comment?”

    “No.”

    Harry pouted.

    “Now you look like a child.”

    “Well… I kinda _am_ one.”

    “Go celebrate with your friends, Mr. Potter. The world is safe, at least for tonight.”

    “Thank you.” Harry kicked his feet idly below his broom, and the professor nodded formally in acknowledgement.

    Harry zoomed away then, heading for Gryffindor tower by way of the dorm window.

    A few weeks later while pestering Hagrid for more information about what lay under the trap door, they discovered that Hagrid had won a dragon’s egg while gambling. Immediately following were the _worst_ three weeks of Harry’s year so far — Professor Snape definitely knew he was hiding something big and always looked _just_ on the edge of disappointment — and they barely escaped the end of each day with their skin still on their bodies.

    The worst still... the whole nightmarish effort to keep Hagrid from losing his job culminated in the worst night of all as the four of them spearheaded taking the rapidly growing dragon to the tallest tower — and were caught by Filch on the way back to their common room.

    Harry would have given anything to be invisible again during Professor McGonagall’s point-taking... twenty off _each_ of them for being out after curfew without a valid reason.

    They were pariahs. Instant Untouchables. Eighty points, and just like that, they were in third place, just above Hufflepuff. Even his own teammates — even the overprotective jokesters Fred and George! — wouldn’t talk to him, refused to speak his name. Overnight, the four of them had become Voldemort to the rest of the school. They who shall not be named.

    Except, of course, for the Slytherins who were _overjoyed_ for the point upset. They were now in the lead again, and it was almost guaranteed that they would win the House Cup. Even Draco was talking to him as cheerfully as ever again, joining the four of them in the library and out on the grounds and in general being much more pleasant to be around than usual. Ron hated it, but Harry felt like he was making a new friend.

    Professor Snape _was_ disappointed. Clearly, too, whereas before it had just been Harry's guilty conscience making him feel that way. That was the worst part. He treated Harry the same, but every interaction in was a little colder, a little less patient, and a lot more agonizing for Harry's idolizing little heart.

    He was sorry for not asking Professor Snape for help, the way he’d been told to do, but couldn’t regret getting Norbert the dragon to his new home on the reserve. Hagrid was up to his neck with him and almost certainly would have died, or gotten someone killed, very soon. All of the consequences together though... they made Harry vow never to get involved in any harebrained schemes ever again.

    And then he heard Quirrell begging in an empty classroom.

    “No — no — not again, please —” the man was pleading. It sounded like there might be someone else there... speaking poisonously, dangerously.

    “All right — all right —” the Defense Professor wept in response to whatever that nasty voice had demeaned out of the quivery fellow. When the man left the classroom, hands on his turban as if it had slid to the side in his upset, fresh tears flowed from his eyes and he ran from Harry like Peeves was after him. For his part, _Harry_ sprinted straight for the dungeons.

    He went for that stretch of hallway where he had seen Professor Snape poking his head out that odd doorway — the one that was never there when Harry walked past again — and indeed after a few minutes of searching and poking the walls, the stone and mortar tumbled out of the way on a stretch of wall to create a doorway.

    “Mr. Potter?” the Professor called, alarmed as Harry barreled through the door.

    “I heard something,” he said, eyeing the now-visible door meaningfully. The Professor shut it, hesitating, and then cast two unknown spells — one at the door, one at the floor between them — before returning his attention to his erratic student.

    “Quirrell, in an empty classroom _begging_ someone to spare him something, I didn’t hear what. There was another door… it wasn’t closed all the way… but I came to you instead of seeing who it must have been.” Harry was _vibrating_ with energy. He _knew_ this was important, and the narrowed eyes and pressed-thin lips of his Professor told him he had been accurate.

    “You saw no other person in this room?”

    “No one. But I heard someone else. Someone angry, maybe threatening. Whatever they wanted him to do, he’s _going_ to do it now. Today, maybe!”

    Professor Snape’s face was pale… a stark white against his dark hair and clothing.

    “Professor…?” Harry ventured softly. “What is it?”

    “Just an old fear,” the other man said tightly. “I will go to the Headmaster immediately, and will guard the third floor _myself._ Stay in your tower after curfew, _please,_ Mr. Potter.”

    “I will,” Harry said, mouth turning down at the corners. “I’m _am_ sorry. We… had to be out then. But I regret not asking for help.”

    “Just stay in _now_. That’s all I’m asking. I need to see the Headmaster right away.”

    “Okay.” After the doorway disappeared again the man strode away, his long legs carrying him away far faster than Harry could hope to keep up with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's something about this chapter... I'm not sure. It has everything in it that I wanted to include and yet... I am unsatisfied when I read through it. I wanted to write this first book as detached and unobservant as a narrator as I could stand... (ya know, cuz he be a wee bairn of a lad and all) but maybe I just can't quite stand it after all, lol! :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry serves detention.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another thanks to J.K. Rowling and her beautiful characterization in Hagrid. Quotes from the book present in mass and en masse. ;)

# Chapter Eight

* * *

* * *

    The next morning, they received their summons for their detention, to be carried out _after curfew_ with Filch. His eyes went up to the Head table, shocked at being called to disobey his agreement with Professor Snape so immediately, but with a sour look on his face the man nodded in his general direction. He knew. Harry supposed he’d be in the company of Filch, but _still._

    That night Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville all went down together to the Entrance Hall, huddling together in solidarity as Filch regaled them all with tales of torture being used as a punishment in the ‘old days.’ They were then handed off to Hagrid which rather perked them up, but then that faded as well when Neville realized first where they were headed.

    “The _Forbidden Forest_?” he squeaked. Harry hadn’t heard his voice twist like that in several months. “At _night_?”

    Filch cackled better than any witch when he got going, apparently. “That’s your lookout, innit?” he said. “Should’ve thought of them ravenous beasties before you got in trouble, shouldn’t you?”

    Hagrid led them away from the sinister caretaker impatiently.

    “I’ll be back at dawn… for what’s _left_ of them,” the stringy man called after them.

    “We’re really going into the Forest then, Hagrid?” Harry asked, apprehensive about the situation as well.

    “Yeh wanted to sneak out at nigh’, now you’ve got yer wish. Now, listen carefully, 'cause it's dangerous what we're gonna do tonight an’ I don't want no one taking risks. Follow me over here a moment.”

    Hagrid shone his light over the ground in front of the very first trees they came across. There, on the ground, as if someone had spilled molten metal, were a few brightly glistening puddles.

    “Look there. See that stuff shinin’ on the ground? Silvery stuff? That's unicorn blood. There's a unicorn in there bin hurt badly by summat. This is the second time in a week. I found one dead last Wednesday. We are going to try an’ find the poor thing. We might have ter put it out of its misery.”

    “What if whatever hurt it gets us first?” Ron asked then.

    But Hagrid was confident. “There's nothing that lives in the forest that'll hurt yeh if yer with me or Fang — an’ keep to the path. Right, now we're going to split inter two parties an’ follow the trail in diff’rent directions. There's blood all over the place, it must have been staggerin’ around since last night at least.”

    “We can't all stay with you?” whined Neville.

    “Yeh'll be alright. Why don’ you an’ Ron take Fang. That way yeh can keep him close ter yeh. Now, if any of us finds the unicorn, will send up green sparks, right? Get your wands out an’ practice now — that's it — an’ if anyone gets in trouble, send up red sparks, an’ we'll all come and find yeh — so, be careful — let's go.”

    “What could be going after the unicorns?” Harry asked Hagrid. In his head, he remembered… that threatening, angry voice…

    “I dunno. Unicorns are fast — it's not easy ter catch a unicorn, they're powerful magic creatures. I never knew one to be hurt before.”

    Through all this Hermione was silent, alert. Harry patted her arm a bit, and she sent him a shaky smile in return.

    “I thought maybe we'd be looking for potions ingredients, since it's so close to midnight. But this is... a bit different.”

    “I wish we were getting ingredients,” Harry said. “Hermione, I want to tell you… what I heard yesterday —”

    “GET BEHIND THAT TREE!”

    Hagrid lifted Harry and Hermione, one in each hand, and set them roughly down behind a huge tree, then pointing his crossbow out into the night, stood at the ready. Hermione clung to Harry, but he didn't know what it was… didn't hear — then, there it was, like a cloak trailing over the ground, but there were no _footsteps…_

    “I knew it. There's summat in here that shouldn’ be.”

    “What is it, Hagrid?” Hermione asked.

    “Dunno. Let's keep moving.”

    They met a centaur, Ronan, not too much later, then another, Bane, two creatures who seemed more interested in the sky than the hurt unicorn, and so Hagrid turned them away from the stargazers with a scoff. Shortly after, red sparks lit up the sky, sending a ghastly crimson light creeping over every raised surface and deepening the mystery of the shadows.

    “You two wait here! Stay on the path, I'll come back for yeh!”

    “You don't think they've been hurt, do you?” Hermione asked as Hagrid's crashing form faded entirely from hearing.

    “I hope not,” said Harry grimly. It only took another few minutes before Hagrid and the two smaller boys came back into view.

    “I tripped,” Ron said, face scarlet in embarrassment. “It wasn't too bad, but Neville sent the sparks before seeing if I was okay…”

    Neville also colored at the light note of resentment in his voice. “Sorry.”

    “We'll be lucky ter catch anything at all with all the noise yeh were making, yellin’ at each other,” Hagrid grumbled. “Neville, issit? Well then yer with me. Harry and Ron, you take Fang. Let's try ter get this done.”

    And so they switched up the teams, walking for another long while before they stumbled upon a glowing white form on the ground.

    “That's it, isn't it,” Ron said, voice low.

    Harry raised his wand to send up the alert, but paused when he saw a shadow moving, just beyond the unicorn's body.

    “ _Merlin,_ ” Ron gasped in fear. Fang, sniffing suddenly, turned and bolted without warning, leaving them alone with the figure currently suckling at the unicorn's wound. With the giant dog crashing through the undergrowth the creature paused, then drew itself up to full height — the way it was wearing a cloak like that, it may have been human — and it strode towards them, hand outstretched…

    A terrible pain branded across his forehead then, so awful Ron had to catch him before he fell to the ground with it. The other boy was tugging him, trying vainly to get him away from the menacing form, but Harry was stumbling, sightless, just as thunderous hooves approached and jumped over their half-bent bodies.

    When Harry could see beyond the pain again — when it faded enough for him to stop leaning on Ron as if he'd gone and fainted — he could see that it was an entirely new centaur which had rescued them this time. The figure had fled; they were safe.

 

* * *

 

    Harry yearned for his soulmate more than ever once he’d returned his tower. They were all somber and shaken on the way back, but Ron and Harry most of all. And at least Ron had been able to lay eyes on Hermione not too long after Firenze had carried them back to Hagrid, even if he didn't value that gift for what it truly was. But now they knew, Ron and Harry, and then in hushed whispers Hermione and Neville knew too, and in the morning, Professor Snape would as well: Voldemort was still alive. Voldemort — who'd left him his scar and apparently still had the ability to wound him through it — had been just a breath away from taking hold of him and finishing the job.

    They all slept late, and rushed in just as breakfast was ending. They managed to pile up a plate though, and sat on the front steps eating from it and huddling around Harry who was still feeling the terror from the night before.

    “Mr. Potter.”

    Harry’s head snapped up, seeing his Potions professor at the top of the stairs, holding the door to the Entrance Hall open.

    “When you have a moment, I’d like to discuss an issue with your most recent essay.”

    Harry shoved the plate at Neville and scrambled up, stopped short by Ron’s hand on his wrist. “Harry! What if it’s _him_? Everyone knows he’s obsessed with the Dark Arts!”

    “It’s not,” he snapped, yanking his arm away. Someone else had mentioned the Professor’s interest in the Defense position at the beginning of the year as well, and even if it was true he knew that Professor Snape was still _protecting_ him, not hunting him. “Get off it, Ron, we _know_ who it is.”

    The other boy’s face was pale, but he nodded reluctantly and withdrew his hand. Harry hurried after the Professor, who drawled, “Everything well?”

    “Just a… philosophical difference,” said Harry, stumbling a bit over the long word. He thought he heard a snort of laughter from the man, but when he peeked, the face was impassive as ever.

    “I see.”

    “So, despite our best efforts there was still excitement last night,” he said as they closed the door of his office behind them. He gestured to a seat before the desk, and Harry eyed the glass jars suspiciously as he sat down opposite his professor.

    “Yes. Sir… Firenze — a centaur — seemed to think it was Voldemort.”

    “ _Don’t say that name_!”

    Harry rocked back in his seat and Professor Snape gripped the bridge of his nose angrily.

    “Before… in the war before, terrible things happened to people who said that name. There’s a spell that can make it happen. Any time, at any place.”

    “I’m sorry. I didn’t know much of anything before Hogwarts,” Harry explained, twisting his hands in his lap. “I keep messing that part up. Ron hates it too.”

    “Mr. Weasley's family fought against the Dark Lord in the first war. They likely remember very well the toll taken.”

    “The _first_ war… so you think it will happen again?”

    “I think, Mr. Potter, that for Him it never stopped.”

    Harry shivered.

    "Mr. Potter, if you have need, I have here a Calming Draught that I thought you might benefit from. A swallow or two will help you process things in a more relaxed frame of mind, but drink too much and you'll be reduced to stupefaction."

    "I'm not hysterical," Harry protested. "I'm holding on alright."

    "Good for you," the man said mildly. "As you are eleven, however, I'd like to encourage you not to feel like you need to be able to shoulder the weight of having seen such a horror up close. It is your choice."

    Harry bit his lip, remembering the exchange of potions they'd made months earlier, and uncorked the bottle, taking a swallow and a half. With that small amount he felt his tension headache fading, and his shoulders falling down to their normal position.

    "You may take the rest, if you have need of it. Try to wait at least an hour, and I won't be able to give you a refill — mood suppressants can become addictive when used instead of problem solving."

    "Thank you, Professor," Harry said softly.

    The man nodded gravely, and Harry left, longing for the emotion exchange he had with his soulmate and wondering if he truly  _wasn't_ leaving it behind just now.

    His friends were right where he left them and he sat back down, showing them the potion he'd been given and slumping onto Hermione's shoulder, as tired as could be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience in me getting this chapter out. I know authors usually have a bad-health reason for why things slow down, but I actually have a good-health reason. I *have* been sick for the past few years... it started with constant illnesses (mild, like colds, but as soon as one stopped I'd started coming down with another one.) and then after a bad stomach bug I was sick without end for over a year while my blood panels and physical body showed me as being in perfect health. Only recently I took matters into my own hands and started a harsh elimination diet and I've actually been feeling better. It was a bit of a struggle to not off myself before, I felt so bad for so long with no cause and no end, but with me eliminating everything I've ever eaten before (an exaggeration) I actually have a shred of energy now, and it's effing terrifying. The feeling reminds me strongly of when I went skydiving with my mom. Logically it was a fantastic experience, great, want to notice everything and remember it forever, but at the same time AHHH I'M FALLING OUT OF THE SKY AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT!
> 
> So... a good reason to delay, but after being barely able to do more than leave my bed for so long, feeling okay for long periods of time is absolutely frightening. (Like a dog locked in its cage, afraid to leave when the door's open, I guess.)
> 
> But you're here for the HP story, not mine, right? ;D The next chapter is where the 'light gore' warning comes in. It's worse than canon, but I tried to stay within realism for the characters J.K. Rowling presented. There's three chapters left and then 'Year One' ends. I'm still working on the summer before his second year even begins on Year Two, so there will be a long pause in between finishing this one and when I begin to post that one, I'm sorry. Big changes planned, though, that's exciting.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry is intent on obeying Professor Snape, but someone else won't give him the chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks J.K. Rowling 😍😍

# Chapter Nine

    Exams, with the threat of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named hanging overhead, were rough, but every day Professor Snape met his eyes at least once and somehow conveyed _‘everything is still under control.’_ He was very sneaky about it and often Harry wondered if he didn’t want anyone _at all_ to know that they got along. Publicly he treated Harry like every other student, as if they didn’t share a great and terrible secret from the rest of the world — that You-Know-Who had been not even a full kilometer outside the castle the week before...

    The day of the last exam, the quartet stumbled upon Professors Snape and McGonagall arguing, their Head of House carrying a large stack of books and trying not to lose any as they whispered fiercely at each other. They stopped their fierce whispers when they caught sight of the young group, but the two adults were still blocking the hall and it was supremely awkward to have to skirt around the pair.

    Later that day, relaxing on the lawn, an owl came to Harry.

> ‘The Headmaster is out of the castle for the night. If you’re not there already, go to your dormitory and stay there until he’s returned tomorrow.’

    “The Headmaster’s gone?” gasped Hermione. “ _Now?_ When just last week —”

    “We have to get to the dormitory. We need to keep hidden.”

    “But the _Stone_ —”

    Harry waved the letter in his hand. “Professor Snape’s been guarding it. I bet that’s what he and McGonagall were arguing about in the hallway. Let’s _go._ ”

    “I still don’t trust Snape,” muttered Ron. “I say we go after Quirrell ourselves.”

    “And what, shoot leg-locker curses at him? And what if Vol— You-Know-Who — is there with him? We don’t even know how to get past Fluffy, and I bet _he_ doesn’t either.”

    “I trust the Professor,” Neville piped up. “I’ve gotten much better at Potions since he made me work with him in class. I never melt my cauldron anymore.”

    “I agree with Harry,” Hermione spoke up. “This is better left to the adults. And… if Professor Snape does know the Dark Arts like it’s said… then who better to stand up to Quirrell? He’s scared of anything Dark or even just mildly _uncertain_.”

    “Fine,” grunted Ron. “ _Fine._ ”

    So, in the tower they stayed, discussing the exams, soothing Hermione’s worry that she gave the wrong answer to question ‘seven-C’ for Professor Binns’ test that morning, playing games and generally trying to forget that a world in flux existed outside the portrait hole.

    Not that Harry could. The others seemed to be far more at peace as the afternoon progressed, but he couldn’t calm down... couldn’t rest because his scar prickled with increasing intensity as the day dragged on and he _knew,_ he knew it was a warning. He _knew_ Professor Snape was putting himself in danger to keep the rest of them safe — and maybe their head of house, as well as whoever else had been a part of guarding the Stone — and it burned the very fiber of his soul to close the curtains of his bed and try to go to sleep that night.

    Maybe that was why his nightmares — he’d had so many that week — were especially intense that night. It was the same one as always, that insane laughter, screams, and the green light and the sorrow, but now there was that silver-blood soaked phantasm chasing him through the forest and Quirrell's turban… unraveling itself to wrap around his arm…

    No, there was a _real_ hand around his arm.

    Harry was yanked swiftly out of his dream as he was yanked out of bed… unceremoniously, tumbling out, his arm held by an unyielding fist high above him so that his body hung half-off the ground from the grip.

    “Wh-what…” His shoulder protested mightily from the treatment.

    “Shut up, Potter. Let’s go.”

    It was Quirrell. That same smelly turban was on his head, and his hand clenched even tighter around his pajama sleeve, tugging him up, then out of the dorm and shoving him, as Harry hollered for help, down the stairs.

    He tumbled and fell, losing his glasses along the way, then as he panted, dazed in a heap at the bottom, they were shoved back on his face and that hand was jerking him back on his feet again, this time the hand clamped around his upper arm, just under his armpit.

    “I know you tried to kill me at the Quidditch match,” Harry gasped out right before being shoved through the portrait hole. He fell, landing painfully on the sure spots he’d just gotten on his roll down the stairs.

    “Good for you. Up you get.”

    Harry cried out in pain as he was lifted roughly to his feet again, Quirrell seeming to have no trouble manhandling his slight weight.

    “I would have managed it too if not for Snape muttering a counter-curse, trying to save you. He needed have worried so much after that… not like I could do anything with Dumbledore watching. A waste of his time, really, when after all that, I’m going to kill you tonight.”

    “Is that why you’re taking me now?”

    “A small stop first of course, but yes. You’re too nosy to live, Potter. Scurrying around the school at Halloween like that, for all I knew you’d seen me coming to look at what was guarding the Stone.”

    “The troll was you?” Harry asked, trying to keep up, but he was just a kid and Quirrell’s steps were so _long_ , as if he was purposefully going too fast so that he could drag Harry as he went.

    “Certainly. I have a gift for trolls… you’re about to see another one I’ve met… unfortunately Snape held me off that day — and not only did my troll fail to beat you to death, that three headed dog didn’t even manage to bite Snape’s leg off properly. Here we are, then.”

    They were on the third floor, and the door to Fluffy’s room was wide open. Harry tugged at the arm holding him — was he going to be fed to the beast? — but Quirrell dragged him ever forward…

    The dog was dead.

    Fluffy was dead, and it wasn’t clean, either. Harry vomited at the sight, then again at the lump that was Professor Snape in the corner, a small burst of blood up on the wall where he undoubtedly had collided with it. There was an uncomfortably large puddle of blood under his head, and it was far enough away from the bloodbath that was the dog that Harry knew it was his alone. Harry couldn't feel anything from the man again, and Harry hysterically wondered if he'd lost his chance forever to figure out whether his suspicions were actually true.

    "They always underestimate me..." Quirrell murmured, seeing where his attention had strayed. "It's the stutter... fools."

    “No,” he cried weakly. “Professor…”

    “Oh, stop snivelling. He’s alive. Now get down there.”

    The trap door had been left open, and Quirrell shoved him down. Harry screamed as he fell, fell — and landed on something rather soft and springy. He tried to scramble and clamber away from where Quirrell would undoubtedly be landing next.

    It was only when he’d been struggling for a few seconds that he realized what he was sitting on was a plant, and it already held him fast, slowly curling around his legs, arms, and then his chest, and then further up, around his neck, crushing...

_Whump!_

    “Oh, do stop _whining_ Potter.” Fierce orange fire, drastically unlike Hermione’s soft blue flower of a flame, shot from his wand. The plant screamed out with many identical voices as it caught, and dropped both Quirrell and Harry down to the ground below. “Stop acting so dramatic,” the Professor snapped as Harry gasped for breath again, curling his hands around his windpipe which had only just been released from the plant’s embrace. " _Children._ This is why I hate children..."

    That merciless hand came down to him again, but this time the flickering light of the shrieking plant must have upset his aim, because he grabbed at Harry’s shoulder, not his arm, right where a tear in his threadbare PJ's existed.

    Quirrell shrieked, and at the same time it felt like a razor had just been jabbed through his scar. “What…” the man said, staring at his hand which had a perfect oblong burn... the same size and shape as the tear in his shirt. “A stray ember, never mind… come on, boy…”

    Quirrell got a hold of him again, back down his arm where he could get a good grip and dragged him along, past a room with floating keys, but Quirrell already had the right one in his pocket. They passed what may have been a room-sized chess set, but all the pieces were blasted apart, soot on their broken parts, and then past a troll — blood on its forehead but still alive, unlike poor Fluffy…

    Then, they burst through a room which sprang up flames around the edges, with a line up of potions in the middle, but Quirrell was ready for that too and took a tiny bottle from his pocket and gulped the contents, dragging Harry right up to the fire.

    “No… no,” he cried, grappling at Quirrell’s sleeve and trying to plant his feet. But Quirrell was not deterred and picked him up bodily, throwing him _through_ the flames, and he screamed yet again as his skin melted under the scorching kiss of the fire and even rolling around refused to put it out...

 _"Aguamenti_.” Blessed cool water sprayed him then, and the flames which previously would not die were quenched with the strength of it. Still, red patches burned into his skin from his head to his bare toes, and Harry moaned piteously as the pain seemed to keep growing, rather than dying with the fire.

    “ _Use the boy…_ ”

    “Yes, Master.”

    Harry was snatched up again, shrieking as those hands pressed into his burned skin, and then another cry joined his, and Quirrell dropped him to the floor once more, staring at his hands which had more small burns, matching the holes in his shirt…

“ _The Mirror… take him to the Mirror_!”

    “Up, Potter,” Quirrell snapped, still cradling his hands. “Snape’s fire must be stronger than I thought… UP!”

    Shakily, Harry stood. He didn’t know what to do, how to escape this situation… the flames still burned at their backs, preventing escape.

    “Look in the Mirror, fool boy! What do you see?”

    Harry did look. If he was going to die today then he wanted to see a glimpse of a life where Professor Snape was his soulmate, where they were a family without hiding who they were, where he finally had a guardian who loved him.

    And there they were. Mirror Harry seemed in much better spirits than real Harry, even if his hair was half burnt-off and soggy as well. Professor Snape was looking at him with exactly the amount of pride and love he needed to go to his death at peace… but then Mirror-Harry put his hand in the front pocket of his pajama shirt and pulled out a glittering, dark red stone. The Stone! Mirror-Harry turned to Professor Snape and handed the Stone over, and the Professor put it in his own pocket… but what could it all mean?

    “What do you _see_ Potter?” Quirrel demanded again.

    “I see… I’m shaking hands with Dumbledore… I’ve won the House Cup for Gryffindor.”

    “ _He lies… he_ lies _…”_

    This time he was looking directly at Quirrell, and his mouth definitely didn’t move when the high, whispery voice spoke.

    “Potter! Tell me the truth! What did you see?”

_“Let me speak to him… face to face…”_

    “Master, you are not strong enough!”

 “ _I have strength enough… for this_ …”

    Harry backed up slowly, but the flames at the entrance heated the air behind him and his numerous burns seared anew at the brush of hot air. Quirrell was pulling his turban apart, was unwrapping his head like it was a precious gift, hands gently lifting the skeins of fabric until finally, he turned around and there was a _hideous_ _face on the back of his head._

    It was monstrous. Unnatural red eyes, and vertical slits like gills instead of a nose, it was the most horrific thing he had ever seen.

    “ _Harry Potter… see what I have become? Mere shadow and vapour… I have form only when I can share another’s body… but there have always been those willing to let me into their hearts and minds… Unicorn blood has strengthened me, these past weeks… you saw faithful Quirrell drinking it for me in the Forest… and once I have the Elixir of Life, I will be able to create a body of my own… Now that the stone is freed… there’s no use for you… it’s time for you to die, at long last. SEIZE HIM_!”

    Harry turned on his heel, the heat blazed but he would jump through it anyway, to be able to live, to go back to Privet Drive and spend one more weekend with his soulmate, even if he was disfigured… but Quirrell’s hand in his hair stopped his forward momentum abruptly.

    “Arrgh!” Quirrell wailed, letting go, and Harry could see that beyond the shiny burns, now his fingers were actually _blistering,_ and Harry realized, the power of the flame door, it was still in his skin, and he could—

_“Seize him, SEIZE HIM!”_

    Quirrell pushed past the pain and wrapped his hand around Harry’s throat, his scar exploded with pain and the man squeezed even harder than the plant vines had before letting go again, his hands an absolute mess of blisters and boils.

    “Master, I cannot hold him — my hands — my hands!”

“ _Then kill him, fool, and be done_!”

    But Harry had wised up, and grasped Quirrell’s face and robes, tearing at the other wizard’s collar to get to his skin, to burn him right back — and through it all his scar was the thing that burned the most, blinding him completely with the pain, but he held on, he ripped at the clothes, he wrapped his hands around the screaming wizard’s throat… and he felt it… a choking fear, desperation, and pain not his own… getting stronger… and Harry hung on as best as he could, to keep the holder of those emotions as safe as possible, but he was also getting weaker...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is only appropriate to end the chapter here, the same as J.K. did :)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of Quirrell-mort.

# Chapter Ten

    When Harry awoke, it was a slow, uncomfortable process. He hardly recognized the familiar form of the Headmaster until the man began talking.

    “Good afternoon, Harry.”

    It took Harry a moment — just a short one — to remember. “Sir! The Stone! Quirrell! Professor Snape is badly hurt — Sir, quick —”

    “Calm yourself, dear boy, you are a little behind the times. Professor Snape has passed me the Stone.”

    “Then he's awake? But, Sir, Quirrell —”

    “Harry, please relax, or Madam Pomfrey will have me thrown out.”

    Harry gaped, only just then realizing he was in the hospital wing. He was mostly covered with the plain white sheets that covered every bed, but underneath that he was also well-wrapped with gauzy bandages.

    “You suffered from extensive burns. Best not move around too much, yet. I'm certain Professor Snape will be along shortly with a fresh batch of burn salve.”

    “He really is okay, then? There was… so much blood…” Harry felt the nausea rise up at the thought… the puddle under the Professor... the gory corpse of Fluffy… the fact that he was next…

    “If you need a pan, there's one beside the bed,” the Headmaster said, wary. “Otherwise, yes, Professor Snape is taking the necessary precautions with his injury. Beyond his physical condition...”

    Professor Dumbledore shifted then, steepling his fingers over his lap and choosing his words carefully. “One thing that is good to know about Professor Snape is that he values his intellect beyond all his other attributes. Whereas his schoolmates were focusing on their looks, their strength, and their friends, he has always put his energy into developing his own mind. It is the thing he trusts most in this world.

    “There have been times when this trust has failed him. Since, between you and me, his intelligence is rather formidable, these mistakes have been rather…  _daunting_ as well. I believe… you being forced through the flames of his own creation… he may feel as though it has happened again. All I ask, is that when he comes by to deliver the salve… that you give him a chance to apologise.”

    Harry was agog again. “Of course,” he said, never having intended on blaming the man in the first place. Dumbledore's eyebrows rose in surprise, and then he gave a small smile that lifted the long ends of his mustache. “Sir… what happened with the Stone?”

    “I see you are not to be distracted. Very well, the Stone. What did you see when you looked into the Mirror?”

    “Me, giving the Stone to Professor Snape.”

    “And as that happened, Professor Snape was already hastening his way to you, and indeed, felt the Stone drop into his pocket.”

    “But… how…? How could the Stone have appeared to _him_ , not me, while he was so far away?”

    “That is a question for another time, I think. I suggest you make a start on some of these sweets. Ah! Bertie Bott’s Every-Flavor Beans!”

 

* * *

 

    “Mr. Potter.”

    Harry had drifted a bit after Dumbledore left, unable to sink into sleep due to the pain in his skin, but also feeling incredibly tired; if he could only fall that far he might sleep forever. Now, though, his eyes popped open and he felt wide awake.

    “Professor!” he gasped. There he was, hair cut down to the scalp and bandage around his head, but standing tall and holding a large potion bottle between his two hands.

    “Lay still, if you please. The dittany has only been able to do so much. I have just come by to bring Madam Pomfrey this,” he indicated the bottle, “— and then I will be on my way. I also wanted to offer you my sincere apologies. I led you to believe that you would be safe, and then… you were not.” He did not meet Harry's eyes as he spoke, though his tone was firm and even.

    Harry struggled to sit, and the Professor abandoned his obvious unease in order to help him. “Really, Potter, if you insist on ignoring the _simplest_ instruction...”

    “Don't be mad,” Harry gasped through his pain. “I just want to talk about what happened. Dumbledore was here, but he didn't say very much.”

    Professor Snape huffed out a breath. “ _Professor_ Dumbledore, Mr. Potter. And.... that is entirely unsurprising to hear. Very well, then. What do you want to know?”

    Harry's eyes flicked up to the bandage on his head, and the shorn hair. “I want to know the truth. What happened before he came to get me?”

    “The truth?” Professor Snape scoffed. “And you think _I’m_ the one to give it to you?”

    “Aren’t you?”

    Their eyes met for a moment. Then, “I will tell you what I am able.”

    “...Why are you not able to tell it all?”

    Professor Snape’s eyes gleamed, and Harry thought he might have asked the right question. “You are young, and as such some would wish to spare you the _glories_ of war until they feel you can handle it.”

    “And you think I can.”

    “Not necessarily… but I think knowledge is power. If it were me I would want all the knowledge I could hold, right up to the point where I would break.”

    Harry chewed on his lip. “I don’t want to break. But I want to know what happened earlier… yesterday? And I want to know what happened to er… He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.”

    “It was three days ago, now,” Professor Snape revealed, shocking Harry.

    “Th-three days? But the Quidditch match…”

    “You lost.” His smile was one of victory. “Slytherin will win the Quidditch and House Cups again.”

    Harry groaned, feeling a genuine shard of pain that he'd let his team down. “Well… congratulations, I guess,” he grumbled.

    “Thank you,” the man said, as primly as he could, considering the undignified state of his hair. “I cannot tell you everything that happened with Quirrell, for it involves truths about the first war that would be dangerous for such a young, unguarded mind to know. He went down for the Stone, failed, and then decided to use you, or failing that, kill you. He cast body bind curses on your dorm mates to prevent anyone from raising the alarm — Longbottom was first, he had decided to guard the common room against intruders, not that it did anyone any good — and the rest were in their beds. Your friends say they heard him throw you down the stairs, that's where our knowledge ends, until I pulled you off him.”

    “He did,” Harry said, reliving the horror for a moment. “I'm glad no one was hurt… it must have been awful to be trapped like that all night.”

    “They didn't have to wait that long. You woke up some of the older boys who came to investigate the noise, and they fetched your Head of House.”

    “Oh, good.” Professor Snape gave him an incredulous look, as if he could not comprehend why Harry thought his own screams could ever be called 'good.'

    “What happened with Quirrell? The Headmaster has made quite a few educated guesses, but I would rather hear directly from the source than merely _appear_ omniscient.”

    “I've never felt so small,” Harry confessed. “He's not an especially strong looking person… but he yanked me around like a stuffed animal. Or like a yappy dog on a leash. Just lifted his hand, and up my whole body went. Pushed, and I toppled over. He dragged me the whole way to the third floor and there was nothing I could do.”

    Tears pricked his eyes, but he kept going. Professor Snape leaned forward minutely in his chair, and Harry felt like the small movement was meant to be supportive, even if anyone else doing it would be something that went unnoticed. “He pushed me down the trap door and dragged me through all the protections… he had a potion for the flames but he picked me up and _threw_ me past them instead of giving me any.”

    “I am sorry.” Professor Snape said softly.

    “He did it, not you,” Harry said tiredly. “It was a very good protective measure… but only the mirror could truly stop him anyway, right?”

    “As long as he wanted to _use_ the Stone, he could never have gotten it. You wanted to give it to me, to get it away from _him_ and to safety, and so it worked. No one who was after the Stone selfishly could have received it, not even me.”

    “You?”

    He shrugged. “It was perhaps the most unique potions ingredient in the world. At this stage in my life I do not necessarily want riches, or to live forever, but I still wanted to use it.”

    “Was? Then that means…”

    “It has been destroyed successfully by Professor Dumbledore.”

    “Then his friend… Nicolas Flamel…”

    Professor Snape gave him an odd look. “You knew a lot more about the Stone than I expected. Yet you did not confront Quirrell purposefully.”

    “I wanted to. I would have, maybe, if I didn't trust you. It's hard to say whether I would have been brave enough. He had V… You-Know-Who sticking out of the back of his head. An entire living face, just like that, the entire year. What will happen now? Is he still in Quirrell?”

    Professor Snape didn't answer for a moment. Then, he said, “Professor Quirrell is dead, Mr. Potter. The Dark Lord lives on — waiting for his next chance to be reborn. The Headmaster has hope that he can be stymied forever. I do not believe this will be the case.”

    “My… hands. When I touched Professor Quirrell, he burned like the fire door did _me_. Was that what did it? Or… is there something wrong in me?”

    “There is something very _good_ in you,” Snape argued fiercely. “The Dark Lord didn't come to kill your mother that day, but she refused to leave you to him. Her sacrifice for you was born of the _deepest_ love. There's no way someone as wretched as Quirrell could have touched something so pure and come out unscathed.”

    “And I killed him.”

    “He deserved far worse.” A seething vein of hate saturated the pronouncement.

    Harry didn't know what was worse than death. “Will I be well enough to go to the Feast?” he asked, though the rolling nausea in his stomach when he thought about _cooking_ Quirrell's neck to death had him feeling like he'd never eat again.

    “I'm not sure,” the Professor said. Harry glanced away from his bandaged hands back to him, alerted to the hesitant note to his words. “The fire… I made it to be resistant to traditional healing methods, so that whoever tried to bypass my riddle would be marked by their failure. Dittany can only do so much… when a wizard intentionally tries to circumvent its use.”

    “If that can help, why didn't they use it three days ago?” Harry inquired, pointing to the bottle the Professor had brought.

    “It did not exist before today,” he answered. “I had help from… a friend, to create it. I'm not sure it will be enough.”

    Harry peered at the bottle curiously. “You can create potions, just like that?”

    Professor Snape snorted. “Not _quite_ ‘just like that.’ It takes an innate understanding of ingredient interactions, stir and thermo-magica catalysis, not to mention the individual rendering needs for each preparation method to control the reaction speed…”

    Harry’s eyes had glazed over. It was like an adult Hermione was sitting in the chair.

    “Well. You do well enough as a student, but I believe your natural talents lay elsewhere.”

    “Potions are really cool,” argued Harry.

    The Professor raised one unaffected eyebrow. “Indeed they are. But thinking something is ‘cool’ is not enough to devote your life to it, do you disagree?”

    “No — I just… don’t want to disappoint someone.” Harry’s cheeks reddened.    

    The Professor patted the bed beside his leg. “Doing your best will not disappoint anyone who truly cares for you. Any other questions? I’d like to leave before Madam Pomfrey finds me and tries to strap me to one of these beds.”

    “Why do you act like we don’t know each other when other people are around?”

    Professor Snape froze. “Ah. That is a question I cannot answer fully. Just know that it is crucial that it continues this way. Eventually… it may be important for me to even act as if I vehemently dislike you, in order to keep both of us safe. I cannot say why. It is equally important for you to act as if you do not know me, as well.”

    Harry bit his tongue, wanting to know if it has to do with the emotion flashes he thought were maybe from the Professor, if having an older soulmate could get them in trouble. But he couldn’t ask those questions, not with the man sitting _right there_ and absolutely absolutely no emotions coming through whatsoever. He might as well be the Headmaster, or Professor McGonagall, with how enigmatic his feelings were at the moment.

    “Will you explain it to me one day?” he asked instead.

    “As soon as I am allowed,” the man answered, a slight bitter note to his voice. “Let me go, now. I hope this potion proves effective.”

    He swept out without another word. Harry watched him go, an unhappy twist to his mouth as he watched the man leave.

 

* * *

 

    The potion worked _wonders._ As soon as Madam Pomfrey had poured him a cup — clear, with a slight pearly swirl to it — and he’d downed the surprisingly hot liquid as quickly as possible, his burns had started to heal before their very eyes. When the matron had dipped a soft rag in a bowl of the potion and gently wiped the remaining pinkness, pristine skin followed the wake of her hand.

    “It’s amazing,” Harry breathed. Madam Pomfrey nodded.

    “Had it been a normal burn, you would have gotten the same result with Essence of Dittany,” she explained stiffly. “In fact, Essence of Dittany would have been extreme overkill, and incredibly expensive... but then the Burn-Healing Paste we had did not seem to make a _dent_ in the process…” She sniffed, but continued daubing his wounds.

    “Does this mean I will be able to attend the end-of-year feast?” he asked excitedly.

    “Professor Dumbledore says you are to be allowed to go. If I don’t see remarkable improvement in your fortitude tomorrow, however…”

    Harry crossed his now-unbandaged fingers and hoped for a good night's rest.

 

* * *

 

    Healed, and able to toss and turn as much as he liked, Harry had a difficult time getting to sleep. The last time he'd successfully gone to sleep he’d been dragged off to his intended death… now, he kept jerking awake, feeling as if he was falling through the trapdoor again.

    Frustrated, he fluffed his flat pillow aggressively, then huffed back down, hoping he’d be able to sleep before Madam Pomfrey forced him to take another foul-tasting potion, or he awoke too tired to go to the feast tomorrow.

    Then, at the very edge of his mind, he felt a similar impatience, and an entirely separate worry and regret make themselves known. Harry popped up eagerly; the feelings were getting stronger — his soulmate was coming closer! When the emotions changed swiftly to relief and a slight amount of the feeling Harry associated with getting a scolding, he knew his soulmate could see him, awake and searching for a sight of zir.*

    “You’re still invisible?” Harry complained. “I know you’re a person, now. I know you’re my _soulmate._ That’s why I can feel your emotions. I understand that you’re probably a lot older than me and that is really weird and rare, but I still want to _meet_ you…”

    Remorse, sympathy, fear. Harry blinked.

    “Really? You won’t show me?” Harry let his body fall back, his head plopping onto his pillow. No one could know he was on good terms with Professor Snape, and his soulmate was… regretting that they could not reveal themselves also. Coincidences, coincidences.

    “I almost died,” he said to the ceiling. Assent, anger, an echo of remembered fear. Harry closed his eyes. This was the first time he’d talked to his ‘house’ the entire school year. There was so much to catch up on.

    “I’ve made several friends.” Before, the house — his soulmate — was his only friend, the only one who cared, and they'd both known and hated it.

    “They're not as easy to get along with as you, but it's been really nice. The boy I told you about who didn't think people like me should come here… he's one of them. He's really hard to get along with sometimes. There's another boy who is afraid of everything, and a girl who wants to _know_ everything. Then there's another boy who dislikes everyone who has anything to do with Slytherin, but otherwise he's the easiest to play games with when he's not thinking about that. Well,” he hesitated, thinking to correct that statement, “Draco was easy enough to be around after we got in trouble for taking a dragon up the tallest tower in the middle of the night —”

    Shock and horror raced up Harry's spine, and he looked around, trying to catch any hint to his soulmates whereabouts. Unsuccessful, he plunked down his head again. “I really thought you knew,” he said. Maybe his soulmate wasn’t Professor Snape, because he could have sworn that man knew _everything_ before Harry had even opened his mouth. That appalled horror clearly indicated otherwise.

    “You weren’t surprised when I mentioned my friends or almost dying. But rescuing a dragon?” Harry chuckled, but it didn’t last as his emotions swung wildly, and a vice tightened around his middle. Tears burned pathways down his face as the laughter turned to shuddering breaths.

    Sympathy, an echo of his pain, love.

    Harry let that love flood him as they had so often done on Privet Drive. Letting it wash away all else, he curled up on his side and cried softly, “I want to go home. To your home.”

    Deep pain flooded his soulmate, before the feelings slowly shut themselves away from Harry, one by one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *"Zir" is a gender neutral pronoun. Be the change you wish to see!
> 
> One more chapter to close out Year One!


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short finishing up of the year.

# Chapter Eleven

    Slytherin won the House and Quidditch cups, as expected, and Harry could see Draco smiling and cheering along with the rest of his house while the rest of the tables merely clapped politely. By the Feast, the entire school seemed to have recovered from its fear of being attacked by their professors except for the Gryffindor first year boys — and most of all Harry. They smiled and celebrated the end of their first year… but his year mates knew the reason behind the extra emotion in their gazes as they passed each other the green beans. Nothing was said, but food got offered twice as often to Harry, who had been the worst off that night.

    When exam results came out he sent a bright smile up to the head table, though remembering Professor Snape’s warning he did not make it immediately obvious who he was sending his happiness to.

    “An ‘O’ in potions,” he said happily.

    “Good on you mate… only got an A… my Defense grade was alright though… Exceeds Expectations…”

    “I got an A as well,” Neville said, though his smile was much prouder of the accomplishment than Ron's had been. “And an ‘O’ in Herbology!”

    “I only got an A in Herbology,” confessed Harry.

    “I can send you my notes over the summer,” Neville offered.

    “No need to ask what you got then, Hermione,” Harry teased. “All ‘O’s’ up and down, yeah?”

    Hermione blushed, but her pleased smile told them everything they needed to know.

 

* * *

 

     “You must come and stay this summer. All three of you — I’ll send you an owl.”

    “I’ll ask my Gran,” Neville responded politely. “I think she likes your folks well enough… I might be able.”

    “I’ll be with my soulmate… but that still sounds nice,” Harry said thoughtfully.

    Harry, Ron, and Hermione passed through the gateway when it was their turn, and the sounds of various people calling out their goodbyes to him faded away.

    Once through, a tiny red headed girl found him with an excitable hop and jab of her finger. “There he is, Mum, there he is, look! Harry Potter! Look, Mum! I can see —”

    “Be quiet, Ginny, and it’s rude to point. Busy year?”

    “Very,” Harry responded, giving his scar a little polish in remembrance. “Thanks for the Christmas presents. I really like the color of the sweater you made.”

    “Oh, it was nothing, dear.”

    A windy grunt sounded to the side of them. “Ready, are you?”

    It was a good thing Neville had stayed back to take the floo with his Gran, because the sight of Uncle Vernon would surely have sent him running. Harry sighed at the sight of him, red and enraged merely at the sight of his nephew. He was hit, once again, with the sense of _‘wrong_ ,’ that he’d gotten since his soulmate had begin to teach him what it was like to be truly cared for.

    “You must be Harry’s family!” Mrs. Weasley exclaimed happily, peering between Vernon and the huddled-together forms of Petunia and Dudley.

    “In a matter of speaking," Vernon said with distaste. "Hurry up, boy, we haven’t got all day.”

    “Send me an owl about meeting up then,” Harry muttered. “I’m off to see — or feel, rather — my soulmate.”

    “Hope you have — er — a good holiday.” Hermione’s voice was horrified after coming face to face with his uncle for the first time. At least Aunt Petunia and Dudley had only managed to be terrified in the corner and weren't drawing too much of their attention.

    “I know I will,” he said smiling. “ _They_ don’t know I’m not allowed to use magic at home. This summer is going to be _amazing_ …”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Late posted because I didn't realize how short the ending of this Year was and frankly... I was embarrassed.
> 
> The next Year won't come out for a while. I don't really want to get into it but I am struggling, personally and professionally. I am determined to finish this, I come up with new quotes and ideas all the time; the Google Doc is opened and something is added almost every day -- it's just having a deadline and knowing people are out there maybe getting angry at me not posting which is f***ing with me right now (because of the stress of my personal and professional life.) I hope you forgive me for taking a breather at least on this fic -- I still have a few chapters left on Tibimet before I will have to panic on what to do with that one as well.
> 
> To make up for the shortness of this chapter and to convince you that I do have vision for Year Two, here's a snippet from Chapter four of Year Two that hints at something.... but what?
> 
> ___“Let the boy breathe, Albus,” his soulmate cut in with a trace of humor to his voice. “He will not be able to answer if you do not give him a chance to speak.” Harry didn’t realize until the voice had spoken again that his emotions had been hidden away for much of the conversation. He wondered why that was. Did he want Harry to do this? Or was he hoping Harry would say no… if it meant Harry wouldn't ever be with his soulmate, then he would surely want him to say no, right?  
> ___“What are you feeling?” he asked the empty stretch of wall where the voice had come from impatiently. “This is kind of an important time to be blocking yourself off, isn’t it?”  
> ___“You to make this choice for you, Harry,” his soulmate said softly. “If you want it, then it will be. If you don’t want it, then it will not be.”
> 
> Sorry about the "___'s." I did my normal 4-space start to the paragraphs but it deleted them upon posting... and I really can't live without a proper indent, it's one of the few things I have that are compulsive must-be-obeyed or I'll panic.


End file.
